RECONSTRUCTION 
IN  THEOLOGY 


BY 
HENRY  CHURCHILL   KING 

PROFESSOR      OF    THEOLOGY 
IN    OBERLIN     THEOLOGICAL     SEMINARY 


SECOND    EDITION 


Pork: 

THE     MACMILLAN     COMPANY 

LONDON  :    MACMILLAN     &    CO..  LTD. 
I9OI 

All  rl[htt  reiervcd 


COPYRIGHT,  1901 
BY   THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped,  January,  1901 
Reprinted  October,  1901 


J.  HORACE  MCFARLAND  COMPANY 
HARRISBURG    •   PENNSYLVANIA 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CAJJF 
SANTA  TMRHAtt; 


PREFACE 

A  NEW  constructive  period  in  theology, 
it  may  well  be  believed,  is  at  hand.  This 
book  has  been  written  with  the  earnest  de- 
sire and  hope  that  it  may  contribute  some- 
thing toward  the  forwarding  of  a  movement 
already  going  on  —  a  really  spiritual  recon- 
struction of  theology  in  terms  that  should 
bring  it  home  to  our  own  day.  The  book 
aims  first,  to  show  that  such  a  reconstruc- 
tion is  needed  and  demanded,  because  of 
the  changed  intellectual,  moral,  and  spiritual 
world  in  which  we  live ;  and  then,  to  char- 
acterize briefly,  but  sufficiently,  this  new 
world  of  our  day ;  and  finally,  to  indicate 
the  influence  which  these  convictions  of  our 
time  ought  to  have  upon  theological  con- 
ception and  statement,  especially  in  bring- 
ing us  to  a  restatement  of  theology  in  terms 
of  personal  relation. 

The   intention   has   been,    not   to   make   a 

(v) 


vi  PREFACE 

large  book,  but  rather  a  book  as  brief  as 
was  consistent  with  a  clear  and  adequate 
treatment  of  the  points  discussed.  Many 
points  it  has  seemed  possible  to  discuss  quite 
briefly,  because,  although  important,  their 
bearing  when  once  seen  would  hardly  be 
disputed.  Other  questions  could  not  be  so 
treated.  The  influence  of  modern  science 
upon  theology,  including  the  question  of 
miracle  and  of  the  special  bearing  of  evolu- 
tion, and  the  influence  of  the  historical  and 
literary  criticism  of  the  Bible  have  been 
most  fully  discussed.  The  latter  question, 
involving  that  of  the  higher  criticism  of  the 
Old  Testament,  is,  at  present,  so  difficult  a 
one  for  the  great  body  of  the  church,  that 
it  has  seemed  necessary  to  treat  it  with  pe- 
culiar fulness,  if  the  aim  of  the  book  was  to 
be  accomplished.  For  it  has  been  a  con- 
stant desire  of  the  writer  to  help  intelligent 
laymen,  as  well  as  theological  students  and 
ministers,  to  a  more  thorough  and  sympa- 
thetic understanding  of  the  great  convictions 
and  scholarly  movements  of  the  day,  that 


PREFACE  VU 


they  might  themselves  feel  the  need  of  the 
spiritual  reconstruction  of  theology,  which 
is  quietly  going  on,  and  might  value  it  at  its 
true  worth.  It,  at  least,  ought  to  be  possible 
in  America  and  Great  Britain  to  avoid  the 
great  breach  between  the  scholars  of  the 
church  and  its  membership,  such  as  con- 
fronts Germany  to-day.  The  results  for  the- 
ology of  the  fullest  facing  of  modern  thought, 
in  all  its  aspects,  certainly  do  not  seem  to  the 
writer  to  be  revolutionary  of  anything  that  is 
vital  to  the  highest  Christianity,  but  rather 
to  show  a  distinct  trend  toward  a  deeper 
appreciation  of  Christ's  own  point  of  view. 
That  deeper  appreciation,  this  book  con- 
tends, will  bring  theology  to  cherish  as  its 
ideal  a  fully  personal  conception  of  religion, 
and  a  thorough  and  consistent  statement  of 
doctrine  in  terms  of  personal  relation.  If  the 
book  has  any  special  suggestiveness  for  other 
workers  in  the  field  of  theology,  this,  per- 
haps, lies  chiefly  in  this  contention  and  its 
grounds,  and  in  some  points  in  the  discussion 
of  miracle  and  of  evolution. 


Vlll  PREFACE 

Parts  of  this  volume  have  been  printed 
before,  but  nothing  is  here  given  that  is 
not  felt  to  have  vital  connection  with  the 
theme.  The  book  is  intended  to  be  a  unity. 
Thanks  are  due  to  The  American  Journal 
of  Theology  for  kind  permission  to  use  the 
writer's  article  on  "Reconstruction  in  The- 
ology" (April,  1899),  most  of  which  is  re- 
tained in  different  portions  of  this  book;  to 
The  Bibliotheca  Sacra  for  two  articles  (July 
and  October,  1900),  substantially  republished 
in  the  last  two  chapters;  and  to  The  Advance 
for  the  article  on  "  The  Spirit  Needed  in 
Theology  To-day." 

HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING. 

OBERLIN  COLLEGE,  January,  1901. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 

PAGE 

THE  SPIRIT  NEEDED  IN  THEOLOGY  TO-DAY i 

I.  The  Temporary  Task  of  the  Theologian r 

II.  The  Need  of  Knowledge  of  the  Age 4 

III.  The  Value  of  the  Great  Creeds 5 

IV.  Frank  Recognition  of  Difficulties 7 

V.  Helps  to  Mutual  Understanding 9 

VI.  How  Truth  Comes  to  Be 12 


RECOGNITION  OF  THE  NEED  OF  RECONSTRUCTION 
IN  THEOLOGY 

CHAPTER  I 

THE    EVIDENCE   OF   THE    FEELING   OF   THE    NEED   OF   RECON- 
STRUCTION    15 

I.  The  Evidence  Itself 16 

II.  The  Points  of  Criticism 20 

CHAPTER   II 

THE  REASONS  FOR  THIS  FEELING  OF  NEED  OF  RECONSTRUCTION  .  23 

I.  Not  a  Rationalistic  Spirit  in  the  Church 23 

II.  Not   the   Reaction  on   the  Church    of   an  Anti-Relig- 
ious Age 24 

III.  But  the  Influence  of  the  New  Intellectual,  Moral  and 

Spiritual  World 28 

(ix) 


X  CONTENTS 

THE  NEW  WORLD 
CHAPTER   III 

PAGE 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  SPIRIT  OF  THE  MODERN  AGE 31 

I.  In  Religion 32 

II.  In  the  State 33 

III.  In  the  Intellectual  Sphere 34 

1.  In  Philosophy 34 

2.  In  Science 36 

3.  In  Historical  Criticism 38 

CHAPTER  IV 

THE  CORRESPONDING  MORAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  CHANGES   ....  42 

I.  The  Moral  and  Spiritual  Convictions  of  Our  Time    .    .  42 

II.  The  Inevitableness  of  their  Influence 46 


THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THIS  NEW  WORLD 
ON  THEOLOGY 

CHAPTER  V 

SCIENTIFIC  INFLUENCES 48 

I.  The  Principle  of  Freedom  of  Investigation 48 

II.  The  Relation  of  Theology  to  Natural  Science  ....  52 

1.  Science's  Threefold  Restriction  of  Itself 54 

2.  The  Universality  of  Law 56 

CHAPTER  VI 

MIRACLES  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  MODERN  SCIENCE 61 

I.  Mechanism    Universal    in    Extent,    but   Subordinate    in 

Significance 61 

II.  A  Question  of  Fact 62 


CONTENTS  XJ 

PAGE 

III.  A  Miracle  Not  an  Isolated  Wonder 68 

IV.  God's  Relation  to  Persons 71 

V.  God's   Relation  to  Nature 73 

VI.  The  Evidence  of  the  Larger  Dominant  Spiritual  Order  .  77 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE  SPECIAL  BEARING  OF  EVOLUTION 81 

I.  The  Need  of  Precision  in  our  Thought  of  Evolution    .  81 

II.  The  General  Gains  of  the  Evolution  Point  of  View  .    .  88 

III.  As     to    the     Detailed     Application    of     Evolution     to 

Theology 91 

IV.  Conclusion  upon  Miracles  and  Evolution 96 

CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  HISTORICAL  AND  LITERARY  CRITICISM 

OF  THE  BIBLE 109 

I.  As  Concerns  the  New  Testament 109 

II.  Definition  of  the  Higher  Criticism in 

III.  The     Inevitableness    of    the     Historical    and     Literary 

Criticism  of  the  Old  Testament 114 

IV.  Dangers  in  the  Transition  to  the  New  View  of  the  Bible  .  118 
V.  General    Results    of    the    Critical    Study    of    the    Old 

Testament 122 

VI.  Reasons   for   Confidence   in   the    Final    Outcome.— The 

Abiding  Significance  of  the  Old  Testament    .    .    .  126 
VII.  Gains  from  the  Historical  and  Literary  Criticism  of  the 

Old  Testament 141 

1.  General  Gains,  Chiefly  Intellectual 142 

2.  Gains    in   View   of  the    Fact   that   Christianity   is 

Biblical 144 

3.  Gains   in   View    of   the    Fact    that   Christianity   is 

Historical 145 


XII  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

VIII.  The  Present  Positive  Results  for  Theology 149 

1.  As  to  the  Purpose  of  the  Bible 150 

2.  Fuller  Recognition  of  Progress  in  Revelation   .    .    .  151 

3.  Individual  Reflections  of  a   more  or  less  Common 

Religious  Experience 153 

4.  As  to  the  Use  of  the  Bible 154 

5.  A  Restatement  of   the    Doctrine    of    Inspiration.— 

The    Difference    of    Biblical     from    Post- Biblical 

Inspiration 155 

CHAPTER  IX 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  DEEPENING  SENSE  OF  THE  VALUE  AND 

SACREDNESS  OF  THE  PERSON 169 

I.  The  Unity  of  the  Ethical  Life  in  Love 169 

II.  The  Recognition  of  the  Whole  Man 171 

III.  The  Exclusion  of  the  Mechanical 173 

IV.  The  Rejection  of  Sacramentalism 176 

V.  The  Quickening  of  the  Social  Conscience 178 

VI.  The  Increasing  Emphasis  on  the  Ethical 180 

VII.  The  Practical  Test  of  Doctrine 182 

CHAPTER  X 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    RECOGNITION    OF    CHRIST    AS    THE 

SUPREME  PERSON  OF  HISTORY 185 

I.  Christ  as  the  Supreme  Revelation  of  God 187 

II.  God  as  Father  the  Ruling  Conception  in  Theology  .    .  188 

III.  Emphasis  on  the  Humanity  of  Christ 190 

IV.  The  Question  of  a  Social  Trinity 191 

V.  The  Practical   Lordship  of  Christ 194 


CONTENTS  Xlll 

THE    RESULTING    RECONSTRUCTION 
IN   THEOLOGY 

CHAPTER  XI 

PAGE 

RELIGION  AS  A  PERSONAL  RELATION 199 

I.  Guarding  the  Conception 201 

II.  The  Laws  of  the  Christian  Life,  those  of  a  Deepening 

Friendship 210 

III.  The  Subordinate  Analogy  of   Growing  Appreciation  of 

Any  Sphere  of  Value     213 

IV.  The  Basis  of  the  Divine  Friendship 216 

V.  The  Conditions  for  Deepening  the  Friendship    ....  222 

CHAPTER  XII 

THEOLOGY  IN  TERMS  OF  PERSONAL  RELATION 227 

I.  Theology  must  be  Stated  in  Personal  Terms 228 

1.  Religion,  a  Personal  Relation 231 

2.  The  Philosophic  Trend 231 

3.  We  Know  Personal  Relations  Best 233 

4.  The  Present  Strong  Recognition  of  the  Personal    .  235 

5.  The  Psychological  Emphasis  on  the  Entire  Man  .  236 

6.  The  Problem   of   Life,  the  Fulfilment  of  Personal 

Relations 237 

7.  The  New  Testament  Conception 239 

II.  The  Principle  Applied  to  the  Conception  of  Christ   .    .  241 

INDEX 251 


RECONSTRUCTION   IN  THEOLOGY 


INTRODUCTION 

THE   SPIRIT  NEEDED   IN    THEOLOGY   TO -DAT 

"TREATISES  in  systematic  theology,"  says 
Principal  Fairbairn,  "are  not  so  common  as 
they  once  were,  nor  are  they  so  easy  to  write 
or  to  read."  But  if  the  task  of  those  working 
in  theology  to-day  is  unusually  difficult,  there 
is  the  more  reason  why  they  should  be  neither 
needlessly  discouraged  nor  needlessly  divided. 
It  may  not  be  useless,  therefore,  to  recall 
certain  more  or  less  obvious  considerations 
which,  if  kept  in  mind  by  religious  leaders 
and  writers  as  well  as  by  the  church,  would 
greatly  lighten  the  task  of  theological  workers 
and  insure  a  better  understanding,  a  higher 
courage,  and  a  larger  progress. 

THE    TEMPORARY    TASK    OF   THE    THEOLOGIAN 

In  the  first  place,  it  would  help  much  both 
the  theologian  and  his  critic  if  there  were  a 

A  (0 


2  RECONSTRUCTION     IN    THEOLOGY 

clear  recognition  of  the  temporary  task  of  any 
given  theologian  or  system.  The  days  of 
great  theological  systems  are  doubtless  past ; 
not  because  the  great  truths  do  not  abide, 
but  simply  because  the  task  is  differently 
conceived.  That  has  happened  here  which 
has  happened  in  philosophy.  No  man  who 
really  understands  himself  aims  to  produce 
the  final  philosophy  or  the  final  theology. 
Workers  in  both  these  fields  are  coming 
gradually  to  see  that  they  are  related  to  one 
another  somewhat  as  are  workers  in  natural 
science.  Theology  must  grow  as  science 
grows.  The  task  is  endless.  Each  worker 
may  hope  to  contribute  something  to  the 
developing  system  of  theological  truth,  and 
he  welcomes  every  contribution  of  another; 
but  he  does  not  hope  to  reach  the  final 
system. 

In  one  respect  it  is  even  less  possible  for 
the  theologian  than  for  the  scientist  to  re- 
gard his  work  as  final,  for  it  belongs  to  the 
very  nature  of  spiritual  truth  that  each  age 
must  be  its  own  interpreter  in  spiritual  things. 
Each  age  has  its  own  favorite  analogies  and 
modes  of  conception  and  of  statement. 
Truths,  therefore,  that  are  to  be  vital  to  it 
require  re-statement  in  these  terms,  and  this 


THE    SPIRIT    NEEDED    IN    THEOLOGY    TO-DAY  3 

re-statement  is  not  to  be  deplored,  but  re- 
joiced in  as  an  unmistakable  sign  of  interest 
and  life.  That  a  generation  should  be  con- 
tent to  say  over  again  precisely  as  its  prede- 
cessor any  form  of  truth  would  mean  that 
that  truth  was  not  a  living  one  for  them ; 
that  they  did  not  care  to  translate  it  into 
living  thought  and  language.  The  task  of 
the  theologian,  therefore,  is,  indeed,  to  make 
such  contribution  as  he  may  to  the  growing 
theological  truth,  but  chiefly,  probably,  to 
make  real  to  his  own  generation  the  great 
abiding  truths  of  Christianity.  As  Sabatier 
puts  it:  "To  satisfy  the  expectation  and  the 
quest  of  spirits  at  the  very  moment  living  and 
troubled,  to  give  them  the  means  of  justify- 
ing to  themselves  their  faith  and  their  hope 
behold  the  principal  merit  and 
supreme  praise  of  every  genuine  theology."1 
In  this  case,  the  task  of  the  theologian  is 
plainly  temporary.  He  knows  that  in  the 
nature  of  the  case  his  statement  cannot  re- 
main a  final  one,  and,  so  far  as  he  is  to  con- 
tribute to  the  growing  theological  truth,  his 
task  is  limited.  But  if  the  task  is  more  modest 
he  can  attack  it  with  better  understanding 
and  more  courage. 

1  Quoted  by  Garvie,  The  Ritschlian  Theology,  p.  23. 


4  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

THE    NEED    OF    KNOWLEDGE    OF    THE    AGE 

But  if  it  is  the  chief  task  of  the  theologian 
to  make  real  to  his  own  generation  the  abid- 
ing truths  of  Christianity,  he  must  have  as  a 
prime  equipment  for  his  work  a  sympathetic 
knowledge  of  his  age.  It  is  not  enough  that 
he  should  know  it  —  he  must  know  it  sympa- 
thetically. It  is  a  considerable  part  of  the 
task  of  the  following  pages  to  help  to  just 
this  needed  sympathetic  knowledge  of  our 
own  age.  Every  teacher  knows  that  there 
are  two  ways  of  answering  the  questions  of  a 
pupil ;  one  way  is  simply  to  attack  the  posi- 
tion of  the  pupil,  to  make  points  against  it, 
to  turn  the  position  into  ridicule.  It  is  not 
difficult  with  superior  knowledge  to  close  his 
mouth.  But  all  this  may  be  done  and  his 
real  difficulties  remain  quite  unrelieved.  He 
cannot  repel  your  attack,  but  he  is  still 
inwardly  not  convinced.  The  other  way  is 
to  take  the  point  of  view  of  the  pupil,  to 
feel  his  difficulty,  to  endeavor  to  meet  just 
that  difficulty  as  you  would  reason  with  your- 
self in  that  condition,  or  better  still,  as  you 
did  reason  with  yourself  when  you  were  in 
his  state  of  mind.  It  is  worse  than  useless 
simply  to  bombard  our  age.  No  man  can 


THE    SPIRIT    NEEDED    IN    THEOLOGY    TO-DAY  5 

greatly  help  it  who  is  not  willing  to  take  the 
time  and  pains  to  feel  its  difficulties — sym- 
pathetically to  understand  it.  When  the  task 
of  theology  is  so  conceived,  each  worker  is 
more  able  to  find  in  every  other,  not  a  system 
that  excludes  his  own,  but  suggestions  that 
may  help  him  to  make  his  own  presentation 
more  perfectly  adapted,  and  therefore  more 
convincing,  to  the  thought  of  the  age.  The 
great  aims  are  here  the  same.  The  laborers 
ought  to  be  able  more  truly  to  supplement 
one  another. 

THE  VALUE  OF  THE  GREAT  CREEDS 

In  this  desire  to  meet  sympathetically  one's 
own  age,  however,  it  is  possible  to  react 
unduly  and  mistakenly  against  the  older  state- 
ments of  the  church.  To  make  real  to  his 
own  age  the  great  truths  of  Christianity 
requires  that  the  theologian  should  have  the 
broadest  conception  of  what  those  truths  are. 
Not  less  earnestly,  therefore,  than  he  studies 
his  age,  will  he  study  the  ages,  and  value  the 
great  creeds  of  the  church.  He  seeks  thus, 
for  the  sake  of  his  age,  to  correct  the  inevi- 
table limitations  both  of  the  individual  and 
of  the  age.  He  seeks  to  enlarge  his  own 


6  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

view  by  sharing  the  views  of  the  great  minds 
of  the  Christian  centuries.  He  is  certain  that 
back  of  every  statement  for  which  the  church 
at  any  time  has  contended  strenuously — even 
those  which  seem  to  him  most  perverse  in 
their  putting — lies  some  real  truth  of  Chris- 
tian life  and  experience.  We  have  this 
treasure  in  earthen  vessels.  And  it  is  the 
business  of  the  theologian  here  to  discern 
the  treasure,  to  preserve  it  in  his  own  state- 
ment, to  reveal  it,  and  to  hand  it  on.  Even 
if  he  could  reach  independently  a  better  state- 
ment, this  in  itself  would  not  be  enough.  It 
is  a  distinct  loss  in  the  work  of  the  theologian 
himself  that  he  should  be  so  out  of  sympa- 
thy with  the  church  of  the  past,  as  to  lose 
the  sense  of  the  continuity  and  community  of 
the  Christian  generations.  And,  moreover,  the 
new  sense  of  reality  of  the  Christian  truths 
which  he  would  bring  to  his  generation  loses 
much  of  its  persuasiveness  and  convincing 
power,  if  it  seems  to  be  only  his  discovery, 
and  to  be  out  of  harmony  with  the  trend  of 
the  Christian  thought  of  the  past.  It  is  easy 
here  to  make  one's  protest  against  the  old 
creeds  so  strong  as  seriously  to  weaken  the 
hold  of  all  Christian  truth.  An  isolated 
Christian  confession  is  a  self-contradiction. 


THE    SPIRIT    NEEDED    IN    THEOLOGY    TO-DAY  7 

4 

FRANK    RECOGNITION   OF   DIFFICULTIES 

It  would  greatly  help  to  a  genuine  prog- 
ress in  theology,  moreover,  if  there  were  on 
all  sides  a  franker  recognition  of  difficulties. 
Socrates  thought  that  his  superior  wisdom 
consisted  in  a  knowledge  of  his  ignorance. 
The  professor  of  theology  is  not  a  professor 
of  omniscience.  He  does  not  expect  to 
pack  away  in  any  single  neat  formula  the 
complexity  of  life  and  its  constant  paradoxes. 
The  psychological  and  ethical  problems  are 
less  simple  for  him  than  they  were  for  his 
predecessor.  We  have  less  knowledge  than 
we  thought  concerning  many  of  the  refine- 
ments of  theological  speculation.  We  need 
less  than  we  thought.  A  Christian  revela- 
tion, we  should  not  forget,  does  not  aim  to 
satisfy  our  curiosity  on  all  possible  points. 
There  are  many  questions  of  interest  and 
importance  to  which  Christ  makes  no  answer. 
We  reach  an  answer,  that  we  believe  Chris- 
tian, to  these  questions  only  by  somewhat 
uncertain  inference.  Yet  we  are  bound  to 
work  out,  for  our  own  mental  peace,  "a 
Christian  view  of  God  and  the  world;"  but 
in  this  necessary  task  it  were  well  that  we 
should  be  careful  both  not  to  be  wise  above 


8 

that  which  is  written,  and  to  make  a  sharp 
separation  between  our  own  added  specula- 
tions and  the  direct  teachings  of  Christ. 
And  the  differences  in  the  added  specula- 
tions should  not  be  magnified  into  funda- 
mental differences.  These  difficulties  exist 
for  all,  of  all  schools.  We  cannot  evade 
them,  we  cannot  wholly  solve  them  —  and 
we  may  well  welcome  all  earnest  Christian 
attempts  at  solution. 

In  particular  it  is  well  to  recognize  the 
existence  of  the  paradoxes  in  the  great  church 
creeds.  As  in  the  perennial  problem  of 
divine  sovereignty  and  human  freedom,  the 
creed  is  often  content  with  simply  affirming 
both  sides  of  a  great  truth,  without  showing 
how  the  two  can  be  brought  together.  The 
presence  of  these  paradoxes  in  the  creeds  is 
quite  justified,  for  our  well-founded  convic- 
tions must  often  outrun  our  power  of  com- 
plete intellectual  expression  of  them.  We 
are  more  than  intellect.  But  the  theologian 
nevertheless  cannot  be  content  to  leave  them 
simply  as  paradoxes.  He  must  do  his  best 
to  think  the  relation  out,  to  bring  the  two 
into  a  real  unity,  and  in  this  difficult  task, 
he  may  well  welcome  assistance.  Here  is 
room  again  for  intelligent,  cooperative  labor. 


THE    SPIRIT    NEEDED    IN    THEOLOGY    TO -DAY  Q 

HELPS    TO   MUTUAL   UNDERSTANDING 

In  a  cooperative  working  out  of  these 
paradoxes  and  difficulties,  in  preserving  and 
revealing  the  treasures  of  the  past,  and  in 
meeting  our  own  age  with  the  best-adapted 
statement  of  Christian  truth,  much  depends 
upon  religious  leaders  and  thinkers  under- 
standing one  another.  In  the  nature  of  the 
case  this  clear  understanding  is  much  more 
difficult  in  theology  than  in  natural  science. 
It  is  the  more  necessary  for  fruitful  coop- 
eration, therefore,  that  all  avoidable  sources 
of  misunderstanding  be  eliminated.  A  few 
suggestions,  only,  are  possible  here. 

In  the  first  place,  it  would  help  to  patience 
and  mutual  understanding,  if  it  could  be  rec- 
ognized that  differences  in  statement  often 
point  only  to  differences  in  temperament.  The 
seeming  conservative,  for  example,  who 
chooses  the  old  form  of  statement,  may 
nevertheless  really  have  thought  its  whole 
meaning  and  be  able  to  translate  it  into  the 
thought  of  his  time.  The  seeming  radical, 
who  prefers  the  fresh  statement  and  never 
uses  the  old  form,  may  nevertheless  keep  the 
old  meaning.  The  theoretical  temperament 
cares  chiefly  in  his  theological  thinking  for  a 


IO  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

consistent,  all-inclusive,  intellectual  formula- 
tion, and  is  ready  to  believe  the  whole  struc- 
ture endangered  by  the  loss  of  its  least  part ; 
yet  practically  he  may  recognize  the  great 
differences.  The  practical  temperament  in 
his  theologizing  thinks  mainly  of  the  bear- 
ing of  the  truth  on  life,  and  is  not  always 
careful  as  to  complete  theoretical  consist- 
ency; but  his  real  beliefs  may  still  be  much 
sounder  than  they  logically  ought  to  be. 

There  is  also  special  need  in  theological 
discussion  of  the  recognition  of  the  limita- 
tions of  language.  One  is  suddenly  surprised 
to  find  that  language  that  seems  perfectly 
clear  to  him,  as  he  uses  it,  and  is  well  under- 
stood by  those  moving  in  his  circle  of  ideas, 
is  nevertheless  capable  of  an  honest  but  much 
different  interpretation  on  the  part  of  a  critic. 
The  history  of  theology  is  full  of  these  misin- 
terpretations. To  take  a  single  illustration: 
much  (not  all)  of  the  recent  criticism  in  both 
England  and  America  of  the  Ritschlian  school 
gets  its  point  from  misinterpretation. 

This  danger  of  misinterpretation  is  much 
increased  from  the  psychological  tendency 
of  us  all  to  what  Professor  James  calls  *old- 
fogyism"  "Every  new  experience  must  be 
disposed  of  under  some  old  head.  Hardly 


THE    SPIRIT    NEEDED    IN    THEOLOGY    TO-DAY          II 

any  of  us  can  make  new  heads  easily  when 
fresh  experiences  come."  It  is  consequently 
easier  to  place  an  old  label  on  any  new  con- 
ception in  theology  than  it  is  really  to  put 
one's  self  at  the  new  point  of  view  and  think 
the  new  conception  through.  It  is  so  much 
easier,  for  example,  to  dub  a  thoughtful 
but  unfamiliar  statement  of  some  doctrine 
Unitarianism  than  it  is  to  take  the  trouble  to 
see  what  the  statement  really  means.  There 
would  be  not  only  less  hasty  misjudgment, 
but  also  more  valuable  assistance,  if  we  were 
really  at  pains  to  understand  one  another, 
and  so  to  enrich  our  stock  of  conceptions. 

It  would  help  to  mutual  understanding 
and  intelligent  cooperation,  moreover,  if  we 
could  hold  to  two  further  sharp  distinctions. 
First,  we  would  do  well  to  distinguish  be- 
tween a  denial  of  a  doctrine  now  stated  in 
an  analogy,  and  an  earnest,  though  perhaps 
inadequate,  attempt  to  master  the  analogy 
and  to  state,  as  exactly  as  language  will  allow, 
its  real  meaning.  And  it  would  prove  a  real 
safeguard  to  genuine  Christian  thinking  to- 
day if  we  made  a  sharper  distinction,  also, 
between  speculative  thinkers  who  are  quite 
willing  to  keep  the  old  theological  phrases, 
but  mean  something  very  different  by  them 


12  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

from  what  the  Christian  view  can  allow  (as  is 
true,  for  example,  of  several  Neo-Hegelian 
writers),  and  those  truly  Christian  thinkers 
who  honestly  reject  old  forms  of  statement 
because  they  believe  them  inadequate  to 
express  the  truth  they  were  meant  to  contain. 
There  is  a  singular  and  widespread  disposi- 
tion to-day  to  treat  the  former  as  orthodox 
and  the  latter  as  heterodox. 

HOW    TRUTH    COMES    TO    BE 

Finally,  as  to  the  real  and  vital  differences 
between  Christian  thinkers,  which  still  remain 
after  the  completest  mutual  understanding, 
it  would  be  a  help  to  every  worker  in  the- 
ology if  it  were  more  widely  recognized  how 
truth  comes  to  be.  In  our  modern  vision  of 
the  many-sidedness  of  truth  and  of  the  neces- 
sary partialness  of  one's  own  view,  there  is 
danger  of  "over-sophistication," — that  we  shall 
lose  all  real  convictions  and  paralyze  every 
earnest  striving  for  the  truth.  One  of  the 
greatest  dangers  of  the  educated  man  is  to 
be  found  in  his  ability  to  defend  more  or 
less  successfully  any  position.  He  finds  it 
easy,  therefore,  as  Fichte  puts  it,  to  "go  on 
subtilizing  until  he  loses  all  power  of  recog- 


THE    SPIRIT    NEEDED    IN    THEOLOGY    TO-DAY  1 3 

nizing  truth,"  and  readily  persuades  himself 
either  that  what  he  wants  is  true,  or  that  all 
convictions  are  about  equally  justified.  Yet 
indifferentism  is  neither  breadth  nor  true 
tolerance,  but  the  death  of  all  advance  in 
the  truth ;  and  the  man  who  is  able  to  see 
a  matter  from  many  points  of  view,  while 
he  resists  any  return  to  a  spirit  of  intoler- 
ance, must,  then,  still  urge  with  himself  that 
truth  comes,  not  through  the  silence  of  all, 
but  by  each  declaring  honestly  and  earnestly 
his  best.  In  no  other  way  can  progress  in 
the  truth  be  brought  about.  It  is,  therefore, 
a  direct  interest  of  the  church  to  encourage, 
not  to  deprecate,  honest  thoughtful  expres- 
sion by  its  thinkers,  though  not  forthwith  to 
adopt  every  latest  statement.  Only  out  of 
the  conflict  of  earnest  and  honest  thinking 
can  the  highest  Christian  truth  emerge. 
Each  thinker,  therefore,  recognizes  that  his 
own  view  must  be  partial,  but  he  puts  it 
forth  with  all  energy  and  earnestness,  for  it  is 
the  truth  for  which  it  is  given  him  to  stand. 
He  expects  its  partialness  to  be  corrected  by 
conflict  with  the  thought  of  other  equally 
earnest  and  honest  thinkers.  It  is  exactly 
this  untrammeled  field  for  the  strenuous 
struggle  for  existence  that  truth  covets. 


14  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

Truth  has  nothing  to  fear  and  everything  to 
hope  from  such  a  struggle.  This  means 
that  even  in  the  field  of  their  manifest  dif- 
ferences, the  aim  of  all  honest  thinkers  is 
still  the  same:  not  their  truth,  but  truth  — 
the  resulting  truth.  With  this  consciousness, 
it  ought  not  to  be  difficult  to  keep  an  open 
mind  toward  all  fellow-workers. 


RECOGNITION  OF  THE  NEED  OF 
RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 

CHAPTER    I 


RECONSTRUCTION  in  any  living  thing  is 
constant,  but  it  may  still  have  its  marked 
stages.  To  affirm,  therefore,  that  there  is 
need  of  reconstruction  in  theology  is  not  at 
all  to  overlook  the  fact  that  such  recon- 
struction has  been  constantly  going  on,  that 
there  have  been  many  formulations  by  indi- 
vidual men  more  or  less  satisfactory:  but  it  is 
simply  to  say  that  there  is  much  to  indicate 
that  we  have  reached  a  point  where  our 
great  inherited  historical  statements  are  quite 
generally  felt  to  be  inadequate,  and  where 
conditions,  long  at  work,  are  so  culminating 
and  combining  as  to  give  promise  of  a 
somewhat  marked  stage  in  the  development 
of  theology. 

Nor  does  the  recognition  of  the  need  of 

(15) 


l6  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

reconstruction  in  Christian  theology  reflect 
a  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  with  the  Christian 
religion.  On  the  contrary,  the  need  of  recon- 
struction is  perhaps  felt  most  strongly  by 
those  who  have  themselves  gained  a  new 
sense  of  the  absoluteness  of  the  Christian 
religion,  and  call  the  old  theological  state- 
ments in  question,  because  these  statements 
make  this  absoluteness  so  little  manifest. 
Obviously  here  the  dissatisfaction  is  not 
with  the  Christian  religion,  but  with  our 
intellectual  expression  of  its  meaning.  And 
it  ought  not  to  surprise  or  trouble  us  that 
this  intellectual  expression  must  change  from 
time  to  time  with  other  intellectual  changes. 

I.    THE    EVIDENCE    ITSELF 

There  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  need 
of  reconstruction  in  theology  is  widely  recog- 
nized. In  his  recent  History  of  Christian 
Doctrine,  speaking  simply  as  a  historian,  Pro- 
fessor Fisher  says:1  "It  is  plain  to  keen  ob- 
servers that,  in  the  later  days,  both  within 
and  without  what  may  be  called  the  pale  of 
Calvinism,  there  is  a  certain  relaxing  of  con- 
fidence in  the  previously  accepted  solutions 

'Page  551. 


THE    EVIDENCE    OF    THE    NEED  17 

of  some  of  the  gravest  theological  problems. 
This  appears  among  many  whose  attachment 
to  the  core  of  the  essential  truths  formulated 
in  the  past  does  not  wane,  whose  substantial 
orthodoxy,  as  well  as  piety,  is  not  often,  if 
it  be  at  all,  questioned,  and  who  have  no 
sympathy  with  agnosticism,  in  the  technical 
sense  of  the  word." 

In  illustration  of  this  statement,  Professor 
Fisher  quotes  from  two  late  revered  relig- 
ious leaders  in  England,  Dean  Church  and 
Dr.  R.  W.  Dale.  Dr.  Dale's  statement  is 
explicit.  The  method  of  the  Reformers,  he 
says,  "was  still  powerfully  influenced  by  the 
decaying  scholasticism.  There  were  other 
causes  which  gave  to  their  work  a  provisional 
character.  Indeed  all  work  of  this  kind  is 
necessarily  but  for  a  time ;  it  has  to  be  done 
over  again  whenever  any  great  changes  have 
taken  place  in  the  intellectual  condition  of 
Christendom.  Such  changes  have  plainly 
been  going  on  very  rapidly  during  the  last 
three  hundred  years.  ...  If  the  intel- 
lectual revolution  is  approaching  its  term, 
the  process  of  reconstructing  our  theological 
systems  will  soon  have  to  be  gone  through 
again." 

To  the  same  import,  Beyschlag,  the  New 


1 8  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

Testament  theologian,  speaks  of  "our  tradi- 
tional church  and  doctrinal  systems,  concern- 
ing the  insufficiency  of  which  our  age,  with 
all  its  other  differences,  is  pretty  unani- 
mous;" and  adds,  "my  conviction 
is  that  a  renovated  expression  of  our  church 
doctrine  is  one  of  the  most  urgent  duties  of 
the  time."1 

Systematic  theologians  themselves  are  cer- 
tainly not  blind  to  this  trend  of  the  times. 
Dr.  D.  W.  Simon  intends  to  give  the  testi- 
mony of  a  conservative  when  he  says:  "We 
do  not  deny,  nay,  we  are  quite  aware — all 
theologians  worthy  of  the  name  are  aware — • 
that  the  efforts  hitherto  put  forth  to  build 
up  such  a  science  of  systematic  theology  or, 
as  it  might  be  termed,  of  Christianity  or  of 
the  Christian  religion,  have  been  only  very 
partially  successful."2  From  a  somewhat  dif- 
ferent point  of  view,  Fairbairn  appeals  to  the 
common  consciousness  of  theologians  on  this 
point:  "We  all  feel  the  distance  placed  by 
fifty  years  of  the  most  radical  and  penetrat- 
ing critical  discussions  between  us  and  the 
older  theology,  and  as  the  distance  widens 
the  theology  that  then  reigned  grows  less 

lNe<w  Testament  Theology,  Vol.  I,  pp.  xiii  and  xxi. 
"Introduction  to  Stiihlin's  Kant,  Lotze,  and  Ritschl,  p.  xxi. 


THE    EVIDENCE    OF    THE    NEED  IQ 

credible  because  less  relevant  to  living  mind."1 
From  the  Ritschlian  standpoint,  and  thinking 
of  the  religious  situation  in  Germany,  Herr- 
mann urges  that  theologians  "must  surely 
feel  for  the  thousands  who  have  lost  their 
hold  on  the  gospel,  because  they  have  found 
that  certain  presuppositions  have  utterly  van- 
ished upon  which  the  preaching  of  the 
Church  used  to  be  based."2  And  it  is  within 
two  years  that  an  occupant  of  the  chair  of 
systematic  theology  in  one  of  our  prominent 
seminaries  said  to  me,  "The  old  systems  are 
not  simply  going;  they  have  gone." 

Careful  observation  is  likely  to  confirm 
these  varied  testimonies.  The  way  in  which 
elaborate  systems  of  theology,  of  compara- 
tively recent  date,  have  simply  disappeared 
from  the  practical  use  and  thought  of  men  is 
one  of  the  remarkable  phenomena  of  our 
generation.  Even  the  most  conservative 
show  the  same  feeling.  The  old  theological 
statements  are  somehow  felt  even  by  them 
not  to  get  home,  to  be  some  way  unrelated 
to  our  present  world ;  and  so  either  they  are 
repeated  with  increased  emphasis;  or  this 
unrelatedness  is  laid  to  the  growing  evil  of 

1  Fairbairn,  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  296. 
'Herrmann,  The  Communion  of  the  Christian  with  God,  p.  4. 


2O  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  times,  and  refuge  is  taken  in  "the  man  of 
sin";  or,  again,  some  of  the  new  watchwords 
are  caught  up,  without  a  full  sense  of  their 
meaning.  Perhaps  Rashdall's  language  is 
not  too  strong:  "The  restatement  —  let  us 
frankly  say  the  reconstruction  —  of  Christian 
doctrine  is  the  great  intellectual  task  upon 
which  the  church  of  our  day  is  just  enter- 
ing, and  with  which  it  must  go  on  boldly  if 
Christianity  is  to  retain  its  hold  on  the  intel- 
lect as  well  as  the  sentiment  and  social  activi- 
ties of  our  time."1 

II.    THE   POINTS   OF    CRITICISM 

The  feeling  of  dissatisfaction  calls  in  ques- 
tion one  after  another  of  the  old  statements 
as  unhistorical,  uncritical,  unprotestant,  un- 
biblical,  unchristian,  unreligious,  or  unspir- 
itual.  So  Professor  Burton  says,  as  to  the 
first  points,  "Theology  must  wait  for  history; 
history  must  wait  for  criticism ;  criticism  must 
wait  for  interpretation;  and  interpretation 
again  for  criticism."2  Of  the  unprotestant 
character  of  much  doctrinal,  statement,  Herr- 
mann complains:  "We  preserve  what  is  in 

1  Quoted  by  Garvie,  op.  «'/.,  p.  19. 

aE.  D.  Burton,  American  Journal  of  Theology,  January,  1898. 


THE     EVIDENCE    OF    THE    NEED  21 

reality  Roman  Catholic  dogma  in  a  some- 
what modified  form."1  That  our  dogmatic 
systems  are  felt  to  be  quite  too  unbiblical 
and  unchristian,  Beyschlag  bears  witness 
when,  after  affirming  that  he  is  able  to 
"exhibit  a  great  unison  in  the  biblical  doc- 
trine of  salvation,"  he  nevertheless  adds  (in 
language  too  strong  probably  to  give  a  true 
impression  of  his  real  position):  "But,  ex- 
cept in  a  very  modified  way,  I  have  not  any 
scriptural  support  to  proffer  for  the  tradi- 
tional creed  of  the  Church."2  And  Horton 
notes  with  surprise  that,  in  Dr.  Denney's 
recent  Studies  in  Theology,  "there  is  no 
reference  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  except 
when  the  lecturer  wishes  to  treat  of  the 
Church  and  the  last  judgment."  "It  is  the 
unhappy  delusion  of  the  Church,"  he  says, 
"that  it  knows  the  teaching  of  Jesus;"  and 
he  expects  a  revolution  in  theology  from  real 
attention  to  that  teaching.3  It  is  felt  also 
by  many  others  that  what  Lotze  calls  the 
"cosmological"  elements  have  quite  too  large 
a  place  in  dogmatic  systems ;  that,  in  other 
words,  in  large  sections  theology  has  ceased 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  22. 

*Op.  cit.,  p.  xxi. 

8  Horton,  The  Teaching  of  Jesus,  pp.  12,  viii. 


22  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

to  be  religious  at  all,  or  to  have  any  direct 
relation  to  the  religious  life.  So  Harnack 
complained,  in  his  lectures  on  Church  and 
Theological  Movements  of  the  Present,  that  the- 
ology had  become  like  a  great  palace,  in 
only  one  single  room  of  which  religion  sat. 
Even  in  the  doctrinal  statements  in  which  a 
direct  relation  to  the  religious  life  is  affirmed, 
the  traditional  formula  seems  to  many  to  be 
utterly  inadequate,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
because  it  fails  even  to  state  the  problem  as 
distinctly  moral  and  spiritual. 

The  demands,  then,  increasingly  made 
upon  Protestant  theology  are:  that  it  should 
take  full  account  of  historical  criticism;  that 
it  should  be  genuinely  and  consistently  Prot- 
estant— not  in  the  negative  but  in  the  posi- 
tive sense;  that  it  should  consequently  be 
really  biblical  and  Christian,  in  which  case  it 
would  have  left  behind  it  unreligious  and  un- 
spiritual  doctrinal  statements.  From  a  some- 
what different  point  of  view,  theology  is  also 
criticised  as  unscientific,  and  this  criticism, 
too,  must  be  reckoned  with. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  REASONS  FOR   THIS  FEELING    OF  NEED   OF 
RECONSTRUCTION 

IF  it  be  granted  that  the  need  of  a  recon- 
struction of  theology  is  recognized,  it  is  im- 
portant that  the  reasons  for  this  feeling  of 
need  should  be  seen. 

I.  NOT  A  RATIONALISTIC  SPIRIT  IN  THE  CHURCH 

In  general  it  is  not,  it  should  be  noted 
in  the  first  place,  a  rationalistic  spirit  which 
calls  for  this  reconstruction.  There  are,  no 
doubt,  rationalistic  critics  of  theology ;  but  a 
barren  rationalism  is  certainly  not  the  real 
motive  to  reconstruction  felt  in  evangelical 
circles.  The  history  of  rationalism  shows  all 
too  plainly  that  it  ends  in  religious  impover- 
ishment and  indefiniteness  and  in  a  knowl- 
edge without  zeal.1  The  evangelical  church 
knows  well,  with  Van  Dyke,  that  "the  un- 
veiling of  the  Father  in  Christ  was,  and  con- 

1  Cf.  Hyde,  Outlines  of  Social  Theology,  p.  63  ;  Gordon,  The 
Christ  of  To-day,  p.  27. 

(23) 


24  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

tinued  to  be,  and  still  is  the  Palladium  of 
Christianity.  All  who  have  surrendered  it, 
for  whatever  reason,  have  been  dispersed  and 
scattered.  All  who  have  defended  it,  in 
whatever  method,  have  been  held  fast  in  the 
unity  of  the  faith  and  of  the  knowledge  of 
the  Son  of  God."1 


II.    NOT   THE    REACTION   ON   THE    CHURCH   OF   AN 
ANTI-RELIGIOUS   AGE 

Nor  is  the  motive  to  reconstruction  to  be 
found  in  the  reaction  on  the  Church  of  what 
is  called  the  anti-religious  or  anti-Christian 
spirit  of  the  age.  Dr.  Van  Dyke's  characteri- 
zation of  our  age  as  an  "age  of  doubt,"  seems 
to  me  at  best  misleading,  and  to  be  poorly 
borne  out  by  the  evidence  he  himself  alleges. 
An  age  should  be  characterized  by  that  which 
distinguishes  it  from  previous  ages.  And  it  is 
very  hard  to  face  the  large  and  steady  gain 
of  evangelical  church  membership,  and  still 
affirm  that  this  is  distinctively  an  age  of  doubt. 
Dr.  Van  Dyke's  own  triumphant  note  of  faith 
in  Christ  is  not  a  merely  individual  one.  It 
belongs  in  larger  degree  than  ever  before  to 
this  age,  as  the  poems  of  our  day,  which  he 

1  Van  Dyke,  The  Gospel  for  an  Age  of  Doubt,  p.  no. 


THE     REASONS    FOR    THE    NEED  25 

is  able  to  quote,  and  the  literature  he  gathers 
in  corroboration  of  his  own  faith,  abundantly 
show.  The  feeling  of  the  need  of  reconstruc- 
tion in  theology  is  distinctly  not  due  to  an 
unusual  anti-Christian  or  anti-religious  spirit 
in  the  age  as  a  whole. 

There  are  two  contrasted  phenomena  of 
our  age,  not  always  considered  together, 
though  they  are  probably  closely  connected. 
On  the  one  hand  there  is  less  of  natural  relig- 
ion that  means  much  personally  to  men  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  more  of  Christian  religion 
as  personally  avowed  and  lived.  To  observers 
who  are  thinking  chiefly  of  the  class  of  men, 
often  highly  educated,  who  used  to  give  some 
considerable  place  in  their  life  and  thought  to 
some  kind  of  natural  religion,  or  rationalistic 
Christian  religion,  but  who  now  seem  to  have 
given  up  any  religious  basis  for  their  ethical 
life,  it  will  seem,  as  Professor  James  says,  that 
"our  religious  life  lies  more,  our  practical  life 
lies  less,  than  it  used  to  on  the  perilous  edge."1 
To  those,  however,  who  note  the  undoubted 
facts  as  to  the  enormous  increase  of  avowed 
Christian  confessors  in  this  century,  to  speak 
of  this  age  as  particularly  irreligious  seems 
little  short  of  absurd. 

1  Psychology,  Vol.  11,  p.  579. 


26  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

And  yet  are  not  the  two  phenomena  closely 
connected?  Men  have  reached  in  our  day  a 
kind  of  a  parting  of  the  ways ;  either  they 
must  have  much  more  religion  or  much  less. 
It  is  inconceivable  that  either  class  in  our  age 
could  be  content  with  the  mere  religious 
rationalism  of  the  eighteenth  century.  In 
truth,  both  classes  of  phenomena  naturally 
call  for  reconstruction  in  theology.  On  the 
one  hand  it  is  in  part  the  very  prevalence  of 
genuine  Christian  feeling,  in  and  out  of  the 
church,  which  makes  it  so  difficult  to  receive 
the  old  doctrinal  statements.  On  the  other 
hand  there  are  many  honest,  earnest,  and 
thoughtful  men  who  feel  estranged  from 
Christianity.  We  cannot  ignore  their  diffi- 
culties, and  we  have  reason  to  question  the 
adequacy  of  a  presentation  of  Christianity 
that  turns  such  men  away  from  it.  Are  the 
statements  hiding  Christ? 

It  may  well  be  doubted  whether  there  ever 
was  an  age  in  which  there  was  so  much  of 
genuine  personal  thoughtfulness  concerning 
themes  essentially  religious  as  in  our  own, 
and  that  makes  this  a  religious  age.  But  it 
is  a  realistic  age.  It  wants  reality  every- 
where, and  is  increasingly  impatient  of  sham. 
But  it  does  want  and  value  honest  convic- 


THE    REASON    FOR    THE     NEED  27 

tions  that  can  give  account  of  themselves. 
For  every  reason  there  is  needed  earnest, 
honest  testimony  in  theology.  A  real  theol- 
ogy, that  rings  true  and  is  to  carry  any  con- 
viction, must  be  a  personal  confession  of 
faith.  "Set  ten  men,"  Emerson  says,  "to 
write  their  journal  for  one  day,  and  nine  of 
them  will  leave  out  their  thought,  or  proper 
result — that  is,  their  net  experience — and  lose 
themselves  in  misreporting  the  supposed  ex- 
perience of  other  people."  The  danger  is 
certainly  not  less  in  theology. 

The  liability  to  mere  repetition  of  the 
observations  and  opinions  of  others  is  suffi- 
ciently strong  in  any  field  of  work,  even  in 
science;  but  in  theology  it  is  both  particu- 
larly strong  and  particularly  fatal:  particularly 
strong,  because  the  interests  at  stake  in  relig- 
ion are  felt  to  be  so  great,  and  men's  attach- 
ment to  time-honored  statements  so  warm, 
that  a  thoughtful  man  must  hesitate  to  trust 
his  own  conviction  against  what  seems  the 
prevailing  testimony  of  the  Church ;  particu- 
larly fatal,  because  the  phenomena  are  phe- 
nomena of  the  moral  and  spiritual  life,  and 
there  can  be  no  hope  of  attaining  to  the 
truth  in  this  sphere,  except  by  the  most  abso- 
lute honesty  of  testimony  on  the  part  of  all 


28  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

investigators.  There  must  be  the  deepening 
of  the  life  in  Christ,  that  one  may  be  able  to 
speak  of  the  whole,  and  then  the  honest 
speaking  out  his  own  message — what  he 
actually  finds,  not  what  he  thinks  he  will  be 
expected  to  find.  Books  of  such  absolutely 
honest  testimony  are  exceedingly  rare,  but 
whenever  found  they  have  a  value  quite 
beyond  the  extent  of  our  agreement  with 
them.  Now  it  is  such  honest  testimony, 
translated  into  the  tongue  of  the  present  day 
and  spoken  with  conviction,  that  our  realistic 
age  most  of  all  needs.  It  instinctively  dis- 
trusts—  not  always  fairly  —  the  vitality  of  a 
faith  that  speaks  a  dead  language.  Men  nat- 
urally argue  that  a  living  faith  of  living  men 
would  express  itself  in  a  living  tongue;  they 
value  neither  a  dead  faith  nor  the  testimony 
of  dead  men. 


III.    THE    INFLUENCE   OF   THE   NEW    INTELLECTUAL, 
MORAL,    AND   SPIRITUAL  WORLD 

In  point  of  fact,  it  is  exactly  because  the 
living  faith  of  the  present  does  find  it  hard 
to  express  itself  fully  and  naturally  in  the 
doctrinal  statements  of  the  reformers,  or  even 
of  the  theology  of  fifty  years  ago,  that  recon- 


THE  REASONS  FOR  THE  NEED          29 

struction  in  theology  is  felt  to  be  needed  and 
is  demanded.  It  is  not  primarily  a  demand 
from  without  at  all,  but  the  pressure  of  life 
from  within.  But  an  honest  expression  of 
the  pressure  from  within  would  meet  the 
demand  from  without.  The  reasons  then, 
for  the  feeling  of  the  need  of  reconstruction 
in  theology,  are  to  be  found  in  a  deepening 
of  the  Christian  spirit  itself,  and  in  the  in- 
fluence of  the  new  intellectual,  moral,  and  spir- 
itual world  in  which  we  live,  and  upon  which 
this  spirit  has  been  working.  Just  as  the 
acceptance  of  the  principle  of  the  correlation 
of  forces  called  for  a  rewriting  of  physics — a 
"new  physics,"  or  the  theory  of  evolution  for 
the  rewriting  of  biology — a  "new  biology," 
so,  in  the  same  sense,  the  acceptance  of  cer- 
tain great  convictions  of  our  own  day  calls 
for  a  rewriting  of  theology — a  new  theology. 
Not  that  in  any  of  these  cases  the  great 
underlying  facts  have  changed,  but  our  con- 
ception of  them  and  of  their  relations  has 
changed.  These  dominating  convictions  of 
our  age  form  a  universal  permeating  atmos- 
phere, which  inevitably  affects  in  some  way 
all  schools  of  theology. 

What    makes    this    new    atmosphere,   this 
new  world?      What   are   the  convictions   in- 


3O  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

creasingly  shared  by  all  our  generation, 
whose  influence  on  theology  is  indubitable 
and  inevitable?  It  may  be  worth  while,  at 
the  risk  of  rehearsing  some  familiar  facts,  to 
get  a  clear  view  of  precisely  those  convic- 
tions that  make  our  modern  life. 


THE    NEW    WORLD 
CHAPTER  III 

THE   REVOLUTIONARY  SPIRIT  OF  THE   MODERN  AGE 

EVEN  a  cursory  glance  discloses  many  phe- 
nomena fairly  peculiar  to  our  age,  and  we  are 
coming  to  an  increasing  understanding  of  the 
great  undercurrents  which  produce  these  phe- 
nomena. We  belong  to  the  modern  period, 
and  to  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century. 
We  inherit  all  the  influences  and  problems  of 
the  past;  and  we  need  to  discern  how  much 
this  means.  Historians  in  all  fields  recog- 
nize the  modern  period  as  throughout  revo- 
lutionary, critical,  protestant,  but  protestant 
for  the  sake  of  reconstruction.  This  dis- 
tinguishing characteristic  of  the  new  age 
has  been  defined  as  "that  enlightenment, 
destroying  in  order  to  reconstruct,  which 
sought  to  break  the  dominion  of  all  preju- 
dice, and  to  undermine  every  ill-founded 
belief."1 

1  Lotze,  Microcosmus,  Vol.  II,  p.  286. 
(SO 


32          RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 
I.  IN  RELIGION 

The  protest  began  in  religion,  and  was  a 
protest,  as  Erdmann  puts  it,  on  the  one  hand 
against  everything  in  which  the  church  had 
become  secularized,  paganized,  Judaized  ;  on 
the  other  hand  a  protest  "against  everything 
in  which  the  church  had  opposed  itself  to 
the  rational  and  justifiable  interests  of  the 
world."1  Positively  the  protest  meant,  as  the 
whole  world  knows,  insistence,  in  the  first 
place,  upon  justification  by  faith  and  the 
priesthood  of  all  believers,  and,  in  the  second 
place,  the  recognition  of  the  rights  of  prop- 
erty, marriage,  and  the  State.  The  appeal 
made  in  support  of  these  positions  to  scrip- 
ture and  primitive  Christianity  against  the 
authority  of  councils  and  ecclesiastical  tra- 
dition could  end  logically  only  in  a  defense 
of  entire  freedom  of  conscience  and  freedom  of 
investigation.  This  is  the  only  consistent 
Protestant  position. 

The  great  revolutionary  force  at  work 
everywhere  in  the  on-going  of  Christianity 
in  all  communions  is  Christ's  own  mind. 
Increasingly,  on  the  whole,  the  spirit  of 
Christ  is  permeating  the  consciousness  of  the 

1  History  of  Philosophy,  Vol.  II,  pp.  3,  4. 


REVOLUTIONARY    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  33 

church,  expelling  inconsistencies  of  all  kinds, 
and  little  by  little  making  that  consciousness 
ever  more  truly  Christian.  The  Reforma- 
tion was  only  one  stage  in  this  perpetual 
purification  of  Christianity.  Nothing  is  so 
persistently  revolutionary  as  the  facing  of  the 
supreme  revelation  of  God  and  of  the  ideal 
man.  The  moral  and  spiritual  changes  which 
this  seems  most  to  have  forced  home  upon 
our  time  are  gathered  in  Chapter  IV. 

II.     IN   THE    STATE 

Revolution  in  the  State  ends  in  the  prac- 
tical universal  recognition  of  both  absolute 
natural  right  and  historic  legitimate  right, 
as  Lotze  names  them.  In  this  recognition 
of  the  double  duty  of  the  State — on  the  one 
hand,  the  duty  of  keeping  faith  with  the  past, 
of  preserving  some  living  community  with 
those  gone,  the  conservative  tendency,  the 
recognition  of  historical  right ;  on  the  other 
hand,  the  duty  of  fidelity  to  the  interests  of 
the  present,  of  revolt  against  the  "dead  hand," 
the  radical  tendency,  the  recognition  of  abso- 
lute natural  right — in  this  double  recognition 
lie  enclosed  all  the  modern  problems  of  soci- 
ology and  social  evolution. 


34  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

This  revolution  in  the  State,  also,  so  far  as 
it  concerns  our  theme,  expresses  itself  in 
certain  great  moral  convictions  which  are 
gaining  new  force  in  this  generation.  These 
are  later  named. 


III.     IN   THE   INTELLECTUAL  SPHERE 

In  the  intellectual  sphere  the  same  revo- 
lutionary and  protestant  spirit  is  to  be  seen. 

i.  Modern  philosophy  in  its  rebound  from 
scholastic  dogmatism  begins  with  Descartes' 
"methodical  doubt" — the  deliberate  question- 
ing of  everything  that  could  be  questioned, 
and  early  made  its  chief  investigations  in  the 
theory  of  knowledge,  and  throughout  the 
period  this  question  has  been  prominent,  if 
not  foremost.  That  its  great  subject  is  man 
— the  whole  man — and  neither  God  nor  the 
world,  means  that  it  finds  its  key  only  in  itself, 
and  not  in  any  external  source  of  authority. 
Our  own  century  begins  with  the  Critical 
Philosophy  of  Kant  that  was  intended  by  its 
theory  of  knowledge  to  make  philosophical 
dogmatism  forever  impossible.  Kant's  prob- 
lems were  all  problems  of  mediation,  and 
remain  essentially  the  present  problems  of 
philosophy,  though  they  are  much  differently 


REVOLUTIONARY    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  35 

conceived,  since  the  great  systems  of  Fichte, 
Schleiermacher,  Schelling,  and  Hegel  lie  be- 
tween us  and  Kant.  These  problems  may  all 
be  summed  up  in  the  problem  of  bringing 
into  unity  the  mechanical  and  ideal  views  of 
the  world.  The  last  few  years  have  seen  the 
remarkable  growth  of  the  newer  psychology, 
the  increasing  influence  of  the  idea  of  evolu- 
tion, and  the  accompanying  historical  bent  of 
philosophy,  and  the  hardly  yet  recognized 
complete  collapse  of  materialism  as  a  philo- 
sophical theory.  Wundt's  classical  Outlines  of 
Physiological  Psychology  was  published  as  late 
as  1874,  and  his  Leipsic  psychological  labora- 
tory, the  first  in  the  world,  was  not  established 
until  iSyQ.1  The  idea  of  evolution  became  to 
the  world  a  scientific  reality  with  the  publi- 
cation of  Darwin's  Origin  of  Species  in  1859. 
Emphasis  on  the  history  of  philosophy,  too, 
naturally  accompanied  the  awakened  histori- 
cal sense  of  the  century  and  the  Hegelian 
idea  of  a  dialectic  movement  in  the  thought 
of  the  world,  as  well  as  the  scientific  view  of 
evolution.  But  the  programs  of  German 
universities  of  the  last  few  years  show  how 
great  is  the  present  place  given  to  a  more 
strictly  scientific  study  of  the  history  of  phi- 

1  Cf.  Ktilpe,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  pp.  26  and  27. 


36  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

losophy.  This  is  one  evidence  of  a  more 
patient  and  inductive  temper  in  philosophy. 
Even  more  significant  is  the  collapse  of  ma- 
terialism. This  beginning  of  the  end  of 
materialism  among  scientific  workers  them- 
selves may  perhaps  be  said  to  date  from 
Tyndall's  address  upon  Scientific  Materialism 
in  1868,  powerfully  seconded  by  Du  Bois- 
Reymond's  Ueber  die  Grenzen  des  Naturer- 
kennens  in  1872,  and  Die  Sieben  Weltrdtbsel 
in  1880.  The  problem  is  now  so  much  more 
clearly  seen,  even  from  the  scientific  side, 
than  it  was  twenty  years  ago,  that  probably  no 
defender  of  philosophical  materialism  could 
be  found  to-day  among  scientists  of  the  first 
rank.1  With  these  changes  may  be  men- 
tioned, also,  the  striking  development  of  the 
science  of  religion  in  the  last  forty  years,  and 
of  modern  sociology,  which  can  hardly  be  said 
to  be  older  than  the  early  writings  of  Herbert 
Spencer.2  The  philosophical  world  is  utterly 
different  from  that  of  the  Reformation. 

2.  In  Science. — To  the  modern  period,  too, 
practically  belongs  the  very  birth  of  natural 
science,  in  the  sense  of  exact  investigation 
with  deliberate  experiment  and  repeated  test- 

1  Cf.  Paulsen,  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  pp.  74  ff. 
3  Cf.  Giddings,  article  on  "  Modern  Sociology,"  The  International 
Monthly,  Nov.,  1900. 


REVOLUTIONARY    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  37 

ing.  This  development  of  modern  science, 
it  has  been  pointed  out,  has  implied  three 
things :  an  immensely  increased  respect  for 
experience,  emphasis  on  the  universality  of 
law,  and  a  three-fold  restriction  on  the  part 
of  science  to  experience,  to  a  mathematical, 
not  a  speculative,  development  of  its  data, 
and  to  phenomena.  That  is,  modern  science 
distinctly  disclaims  to  be  either  a  priori,  specu- 
lative, or  ultimate. 

Modern  science  has  besides  greatly  affected 
the  thought  and  imagination  of  men  in  its 
immense  extension  of  the  world  in  space, 
and  the  discernment  of  its  laws  through 
astronomy,  and  in  a  similar  extension  of  the 
world  in  time  and  the  discernment  of  its 
laws  through  both  astronomy  and  geology. 

To  these  influences  science  has  added  to 
the  thought  of  the  age  a  sense  of  the  unity 
of  the  world  which  is  fairly  overpowering. 
Extensively,  spectrum  analysis  has  been  made 
to  testify  to  uniformity  of  materials ;  gravita- 
tion and  magnetism  to  uniformity  of  forces. 
Intensively,  the  principle  of  the  conservation 
of  energy  is  held  to  prove  the  unity  of  all 
forces,  and  the  theory  of  evolution  aims  to 
include  all  phenomena  under  the  unity  of 
one  method.  Practically,  scientific  inven- 


38  RECONSTRUCTION     IN     THEOLOGY 

tions  have  made  our  earth  a  unity,  in  a  way 
not  only  to  affect  our  imagination,  but  to 
change  in  a  marked  manner  almost  all  the 
problems  of  our  time.  No  man  can  con- 
ceive even  superficially  the  changes  involved 
in  the  rise  of  modern  science,  and  not  feel 
how  impossible  it  is  for  men  of  this  gener- 
ation to  occupy  precisely  the  point  of  view 
of  not  more  than  fifty  years  ago,  even  in 
their  theological  statements. 

3.  In  Historical  Criticism. —  In  the  field  of 
historical  criticism  our  characterization  of 
the  intellectual  changes  which  have  taken 
place  must  be  confined  to  those  which  bear 
specially  on  our  theme.  "Edwin  Hatch,"  a 
recent  reviewer  says,  "rejoiced  to  hear  'the 
solemn  tramp  of  the  science  of  history 
marching  in  our  day  almost  for  the  first 
time  into  the  domain  of  Christian  the- 
ology.' '  One  date  is  of  special  interest 
here,  because  in  that  year  so  many  impor- 
tant questions  were  started.  "The  year 
1835,"  says  Pfleiderer,  "marked  an  era  in 
our  scientific  knowledge  of  the  biblical 
foundations  of  Christianity.  In  it  appeared 
David  Friedrich  Strauss'  Life  of  Jesus,  the 
work  of  Christian  Ferdinand  Baur  on  the 
Pastoral  Epistles,  and  Wilhelm  Vatke's  His- 


REVOLUTIONARY    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  39 

tory  of  the  *Rjligion  of  the  Old  Testament, — 
three  works  containing  the  germs  of  the  re- 
searches of  our  own  day  into  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  writings."1  The  historical 
sense  is  itself  almost  a  product  of  this  century 
(for  it  practically  begins  with  Herder) ,  and 
it  meant  real  and  great  changes,  in  the  first 
place,  in  biblical  interpretation,  since  inter- 
pretation now  seeks  to  give  full  weight  to 
the  intellectual,  moral,  and  religious  atmos- 
phere of  the  time.  And  to  this  conviction 
the  immense  increase  of  the  last  fifty  years 
in  the  literature  of  the  historical  criticism  of 
the  Bible  bears  unmistakable  witness.  It 
was  inevitable  that  the  same  historical  spirit 
should  recognize  differences  not  only  be- 
tween Old  Testament  and  New  Testament 
times,  but  differences  as  well  within  these 
periods,  and  differences  also  in  the  point  of 
view  of  different  classes  and  individuals  in 
the  same  period.  This  brought  into  being 
the  whole  new  science  of  biblical  theology,  in 
which  all  rejoice,  but  which,  in  any  strict 
construction  of  it,  is  less  than  fifty  years 
old.2  To  the  same  historical  movement, 
coupled  with  literary  analysis  and  carried 

1  The  Development  of  Theology,  p.  209. 

2  Cf.  Oehler,  Theology  of  the  Old  Testament,  pp.  32  ff. 


4O  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

into  the  individual  books,  belongs  the 
so-called  higher  criticism  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. In  its  recent  really  influential  form 
it  is  scarcely  more  than  thirty  years  old, 
since  it  virtually  dates  from  Graf  (I866)1. 

But  far  the  most  important  result  of  his- 
torical criticism  for  theology  has  been  what 
Fairbairn  calls  the  recovery  of  the  historical 
Christ.  It  is  the  unique  and  greatest  service 
of  Principal  Fairbairn's  epoch-making  book, 
The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology , 
that  it  makes  so  clear  the  place  that  Christ 
occupies  in  the  thought  of  our  generation. 
"Our  day,"  he  says,  "has  also  been  marked 
by  a  return  to  the  sources  of  a  quite  specific 
character — it  has  been  more  distinctly  than 
any  other  a  return  to  the  historical  Christ 
—  to  him  as  the  person  who  cre- 
ated alike  the  evangelists  and  the  apostles,  by 
whom  he  is  described  and  interpreted."2 

Let  one  bring  together  now,  for  a  mo- 
ment in  thought,  the  intellectual  changes  in 
philosophy,  in  science,  and  in  historical  crit- 
icism of  the  last  seventy  years,  and  he  must 
agree  with  John  Fiske  that  "in  their  mental 

1  Cf.  Briggs,  The  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch,  pp.  90  ff. 
See  also  Pfleiderer,  The  Development  of  Theology,  pp.  258  ff. 

2  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  187. 


REVOLUTIONARY    SPIRIT    OF    THE    AGE  41 

habits,  in  their  methods  of  inquiry,  and  in 
the  data  at  their  command,  the  men  of  the 
present  day  who  have  fully  kept  pace  with 
the  scientific  movement  are  separated  from 
the  men  whose  education  ended  in  1830  by 
an  immeasurably  wider  gulf  than  has  ever 
before  divided  one  progressive  generation  of 
men  from  their  predecessors."1  If  the  man 
of  to-day,  therefore,  is  really  alive  to  the 
movements  of  his  own  time,  it  is  simply  im- 
possible that  he  should  use  most  naturally 
and  easily  the  language  of  the  older  genera- 
tion in  expressing  his  deepest  convictions  on 
any  theme. 

1  The  Idea  of  God,  p.  56. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  CORRESPONDING  MORAL  AND  SPIRITUAL  CHANGES 

SIDE  by  side  with  the  revolution  in  relig- 
ion, in  the  State,  and  in  the  intellectual 
sphere,  and  influenced  by  these,  there  have 
taken  place  in  the  modern  period  similar 
changes  in  the  general  moral  and  spiritual 
convictions.  Is  it  possible  to  state  with  some 
clearness  and  precision,  and  yet  with  the 
utmost  brevity  and  without  argument,  the 
greatest  of  these  fundamental,  moral,  and 
spiritual  convictions  of  our  day? 

I.    THE    MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    CONVICTIONS 
OF   OUR    TIME 

From  modern  humanism — the  special  in- 
fluence, most  of  all,  of  Christianity;  but  also 
of  political  and  social  evolution,  of  philoso- 
phy, and  the  newer  psychology — has  come 
a  greatly  heightened  sense  of  the  value  and 
sacredness  of  the  individual  person  in  his  en- 
tirety. Sensitiveness  as  to  the  personal 
throughout  is  stronger,  as  it  ought  to  be, 

(42) 


MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    CHANGES  43 

than  in  any  preceding  period;  and  under  it 
may  be  brought  almost  every  other  moral 
characteristic  of  our  age. 

From  the  whole  spirit  of  the  modern 
period,  but  especially  from  Protestantism,  and 
the  influence  of  philosophy  and  of  science, 
has  come,  we  may  hope,  finally  full  recogni- 
tion of  freedom  of  conscience  and  freedom  of 
investigation.  These  principles  are  distinctly 
moral,  though  applied  in  the  intellectual 
sphere. 

The  influence  of  natural  science,  more- 
over, has  been  effective  in  bringing  into  clear 
consciousness  Christianity's  latent  recognition 
of  law,  conditions,  and  time  in  the  moral  and 
spiritual  life,  as  truly  as  in  any  other  sphere. 

The  idealistic  trend  in  philosophy,  so 
strongly  asserted  by  Paulsen,  and  evidenced 
by  the  collapse  of  materialism  and  the  teleo- 
logical  view  of  evolution,  added  to  the  con- 
stant pressure  of  the  Christian  spirit,  have 
made  two  closely  connected  convictions  in- 
creasingly dominant  —  that,  in  the  order  of 
the  universe,  the  mechanical  is  means  only,  and 
that  the  unity  of  the  ethical  life  is  found  in  love. 
Even  where  not  distinctly  affirmed,  but  per- 
haps even  questioned,  it  is  believed  that 
these  two  convictions  are  really  present  as 


44  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

fundamental  assumptions  in  the  reasoning  of 
our  time. 

Out  of  Protestantism  in  its  original  criti- 
cism of  Catholicism,  out  of  philosophy  in  its 
emphasis  on  man  as  both  microcosmos  and 
microtheos,  and  out  of  science  with  its  im- 
plied trend  toward  the  doctrine  of  divine 
immanence,  has  grown  the  denial  of  the  sepa- 
ration of  the  sacred  and  the  secular. 

From  the  growing  sense  of  the  worth 
of  personality,  helped  particularly  by  the 
immensely  deepened  knowledge  of  "the 
other  half,"  and  the  great  influence  of  the 
analogy  of  the  organism  in  the  history  of 
thought,  has  developed  the  social  conscience 
of  our  time — the  definite  avowal  that  we  are 
all  members  one  of  another. 

The  new  psychology,  too,  the  latest  con- 
spicuous intellectual  movement  of  our  day, 
has  not  only  confirmed  the  other  tendencies 
already  named,  but  has  also  added  one  dis- 
tinctive contribution  of  rapidly  growing 
influence  —  the  central  importance  of  action. 
Body  and  mind,  we  are  made  for  action. 
Nor  is  this  a  rebound  to  a  new  extreme. 
The  natural  terminus  of  all  experiences, 
bodily  and  mental,  is  action.  For  the  very 
sake,  therefore,  of  thought  and  feeling,  one 


MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL    CHANGES  45 

must  act.  The  emphasis  on  action  is, 
indeed,  a  protest  against  mere  intellectual- 
ism  or  romanticism,  but  it  is  at  the  same 
time  an  insistence  on  the  unity  of  man,  and 
on  the  whole  man. 

And  historical  criticism  has  not  only 
strengthened  the  emphasis  on  the  historical, 
the  concrete,  and  personal,  but  has  brought 
into  the  very  foreground  the  greatest  of  all 
spiritual  influences,  the  practical  Lordship  of 
Christ.  "This  is  not,"  it  has  been  well  said, 
"an  individual  or  incidental  thing,  but  repre- 
sents the  tide  and  passion  of  the  time;  is,  as 
it  were,  the  sum  and  essence  of  the  living 
historical,  philosophical,  and  religious  spirit."1 

These,  then,  we  may  believe,  if  we  have 
succeeded  in  correctly  discerning  the  trend 
of  the  modern  age,  are  the  fundamental 
moral  and  spiritual  convictions  of  our  time : 
reverence  for  personality,  freedom  of  con- 
science, and  freedom  of  investigation ;  law  in 
the  spiritual  world,  yet  the  subordination  of 
the  mechanical,  and  the  unity  of  the  ethical 
life  in  love ;  no  separation  of  the  sacred  and 
secular;  the  social  conscience,  the  central  im- 
portance of  action,  the  recognition  of  Christ 
as  the  supreme  person. 

1Fairbairn,  op,  «'/.,  p.  188. 


45  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

II.   THE    INEVITABLENESS    OF   THEIR    INFLUENCE 

These  convictions  are  not  wholly  new — of 
course  not,  and  they  have  not  grown  up  in 
a  night,  as  their  sources  plainly  show;  but 
their  present  emphasis  is  relatively  new,  and 
on  the  farther  side  of  these  convictions  lies, 
not  our  world,  but  another.  And  an  age  in 
whose  life  and  thought  they  are  working  like 
yeast  simply  cannot  express  itself  adequately 
in  the  terms  of  statements  made  when  these 
convictions  were  not  so  felt,  and  it  would  be 
no  real  service  to  the  church  if  it  could,  for 
it  belongs  to  the  very  nature  of  spiritual 
truth  that  each  age  must  be  its  own  inter- 
preter in  spiritual  things. 

Now,  it  is  this  new  world  in  which  we 
think  and  live  that  is  the  one  great  source 
of  our  dissatisfaction  with  the  older  state- 
ments in  theology.  These  ruling  ideas  of 
our  time  are  constantly  at  work.  We  all  ac- 
cept them  more  or  less  fully  in  themselves, 
and  they  are  certain  to  prevail  increasingly, 
and  their  ultimate  influence  in  theology  is 
simply  inevitable,  and  ought  to  be.  What 
now,  do  they  mean  for  theology  ? 

In  attempting  to  indicate  some  of  the 
ways  in  which  it  seems  that  the  atmosphere 


MORAL    AND    SPIRITUAL     CHANGES  47 

of  our  time  (so  far  as  it  is  right)  is  certain  to 
affect  theological  statements,  one  can  only 
bear  honest  testimony  as  to  the  direction  in 
which  progress  seems  to  lie  for  our  own 
generation.  In  a  time  of  transition  like  the 
present  it  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  speak 
with  frankness  and  definiteness  on  theologi- 
cal themes  and  command  the  assent  of  all, 
perhaps  the  full  assent  of  any.  But  truth 
comes,  as  we  have  seen,  not  through  the 
silence  of  all,  but  by  each  declaring  honestly 
and  earnestly  his  best.  Honest  thoughtful  tes- 
timony, charitably  and  reverently  borne,  is 
the  greatest  need  of  the  immediate  present, 
if  we  are  ever  to  come  to  that  better  intel- 
lectual expression  of  Christianity  for  which 
all  wait. 


THE    INFLUENCE    OF    THIS    NEW 
WORLD    ON    THEOLOGY 

CHAPTER  V 

SCIENTIFIC  INFLUENCES 
I.    PRINCIPLE    OF    FREEDOM    OF    INVESTIGATION 

USING  the  term  science  in  the  broadest 
sense,  it  is,  first  of  all,  concerned  with  the 
principle  of  freedom  of  investigation.  Con- 
cerning every  phenomenon,  there  are  always 
two  questions  to  be  asked :  first,  the  question 
as  to  process— the  causal  connection,  how 
the  phenomenon  came  to  be ;  second,  the 
question  as  to  meaning — ideal  interpretation, 
what  the  phenomenon  is  for.  It  is  plain  to 
the  writer  that,  in  an  ultimate  view  of  the 
world,  the  two  questions  cannot  be  kept 
finally  separate ;  but  it  is  equally  plain  that, 
in  all  proximate  inquiries,  there  is  great  gain 
in  keeping  these  two  questions  distinct. 
Now  every  strictly  scientific  inquiry,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  a  philosophical  or  theologi- 
cal inquiry,  chooses  to  restrict  itself  to  the 
problem  of  causal  connection.  And  the 

(48) 


SCIENTIFIC    INFLUENCES  49 

Protestant  principle  of  freedom  of  investiga- 
tion means  the  full  recognition  of  the  legiti- 
macy, value,  and  authority  of  literary,  his- 
torical, and  scientific  investigation  in  its  own 
sphere — that  of  the  tracing  of  causal  con- 
nections. It  means  that  theology  refuses  to 
settle  a  priori  how  God  must  have  acted  in 
any  case  in  nature  or  in  revelation,  but  turns 
over  to  humble,  patient,  scientific  inquiry  to 
determine  how  he  did  and  does  act.  All 
questions,  thus,  of  natural  or  mechanical 
process,  by  which  things  came  to  be  what 
they  now  are,  are  unreservedly  committed 
to  scientific  investigation.  This  means,  for 
example,  that  all  questions  as  to  the  condi- 
tions of  the  appearance  of  life,  of  man,  of 
conscience ;  and  all  questions  of  the  method 
of  God's  historical  self-revelation  —  all  ques- 
tions regarding  the  authorship,  age,  and  unity 
of  the  Scriptures — are  to  be  freely  and  fear- 
lessly investigated  in  the  most  strictly  scien- 
tific way. 

Nor  ought  this  absolutely  untrammeled 
scientific  investigation  to  give  anxiety  to 
any  real  believer  in  God.  For  scientific 
investigation  simply  seeks  the  facts,  and 
can,  therefore,  so  far  as  it  is  successful, 
only  make  more  clear  to  us  exactly  how 

D 


5O  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

God  did  proceed.  And  this,  if  we  are 
really  in  earnest  in  our  desire  to  under- 
stand God,  we  ought  to  be  glad  to  know. 
If  to-morrow  men  were  able  to  trace  in  the 
laboratory  the  precise  steps  by  which  the 
living  arises  from  the  non-living;  or  if,  in 
some  historical  seminar,  the  exact  sources 
and  composition  of  Isaiah  could  be  demon- 
stratively made  out,  no  ideal  or  religious 
interest  would  be  in  any  manner  affected, 
except  that  we  should  simply  understand  a 
little  more  fully  the  method  God  took  in  a 
case  in  which  the  mode  of  his  action  is  to 
us  now  quite  obscure.  We  are  continually 
in  danger  of  assuming  that  vital  religious 
interests  are  at  stake  in  the  decision  of 
questions  of  mere  process. 

Our  only  anxiety  can  be  —  and  there  is 
room  for  anxiety  here  —  that  the  investiga- 
tors be  really  competent;  and,  particularly 
in  the  investigation  of  moral  and  religious 
problems,  competence  requires  personal  ex- 
perience in  the  sphere  investigated.  One 
would  hardly  advise  a  man,  destitute  of  an 
ear  for  music,  or  appreciation  for  music,  to 
undertake  to  write  a  history  of  music. 
And,  with  the  best  intentions,  in  the  name 
of  science,  some  exceedingly  crude  attempts 


SCIENTIFIC     INFLUENCES  51 

at  investigation  of  religion  have  been  made, 
for  simple  lack  of  interpreting  experience. 
It  should  be  clear,  therefore,  that  it  is  the 
poorest  possible  policy  for  the  church  to 
warn  off  its  own  scholars  from  these  inves- 
tigations. Moreover,  the  only  answer  to 
erroneous  criticism  or  science  is  better 
criticism  or  science,  not  the  forbidding  of 
investigation.  And  the  latter,  we  may  be 
sure,  is  no  service  to  the  church,  by  whom- 
soever advocated.  As  Julius  Miiller  long 
ago  said:  "Wounds  which  have  been 
inflicted  on  humanity  by  knowledge  can  be 
healed  only  by  knowledge."  This  is  the 
one  sure  road  to  peace. 

Now  of  these  scientific  investigations  the- 
ology simply  takes  the  results.  It  is  itself 
strictly  interpretative,  and  it  reserves  to 
itself  the  right  to  interpret  the  results  of 
scientific  inquiry.  It  leaves  absolutely  to 
science  the  tracing  of  the  causal  connec- 
tions ;  it  claims  for  itself  the  ideal  interpre- 
tation. The  process  belongs  to  science,  the 
meaning  to  theology.  It  is,  of  course, 
open  to  any  man  to  attempt  an  interpreta- 
tion of  the  final  philosophical  and  religious 
meaning  of  any  given  scientific  results ;  but 
it  ought  to  be  clear  on  all  hands  that,  when 


52  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  scientist  so  interprets  his  results,  he 
speaks  no  longer  as  a  scientist,  and  cannot 
carry  over  into  the  new  sphere  his  weight 
as  a  scientific  authority.  He  may  have  very 
little  claim  to  recognition  in  the  fields  of 
philosophy  and  theology.  It  is  time  it  was 
recognized  that  men  are  not  born  philoso- 
phers and  theologians,  any  more  than  born 
scientists.  But  this  consideration  in  no  way 
affects  the  principle  of  absolute  freedom  of 
scientific  investigation,  or  the  necessity  that 
philosophy  and  theology  use  faithfully  as 
data  all  the  assured  results  of  such  investi- 
gation. 

II.    RELATION   OF  THEOLOGY  TO  NATURAL   SCIENCE 

Of  the  purely  intellectual  influences  on 
theology  in  our  day,  that  of  strictly  natural 
science  is  particularly  strong.  We  cannot, 
therefore,  avoid,  in  the  second  place,  the 
question  of  the  relation  of  natural  science 
to  theology.  What  does  the  influence  of 
natural  science  mean  for  theology? 

It  is  well  to  notice  at  the  very  start  that 
it  is  easy  to  overestimate  the  importance  of 
this  relation  and  the  extent  of  this  influ- 
ence ;  and  both  are  often  overestimated,  I 


SCIENTIFIC    INFLUENCES  53 

believe,  to-day.  Professor  James  puts  the 
matter  in  his  usual  vigorous  fashion,  when 
he  says, — "The  aspiration  to  be  scientific 
is  such  an  idol  of  the  tribe  to  the  pres- 
ent generation,  is  so  sucked  in  with  his 
mother's  milk  by  every  one  of  us,  that  we 
find  it  hard  to  conceive  of  a  creature  who 
should  not  feel  it,  and  harder  still  to  treat 
it  freely  as  the  altogether  peculiar  and  one- 
sided subjective  interest  which  it  is."1 
Science  itself  is  only  one  of  our  ideals ;  it 
cannot  legitimately  rule  out  other  ideals. 
There  may  be  a  "deification  of  truth," 
which  is  only  a  deification  of  an  intellectual 
formulation  that  cannot  meet  the  standard 
of  truth  contained  in  the  whole  man. 
There  are  aesthetic  and  ethical  and  religious 
data,  as  well  as  intellectual. 

Nevertheless,  the  immense  progress  and 
rightful  influence  of  natural  science  in  our 
own  generation  force  upon  theology  (in  its 
wider  sense)  the  problem  of  the  mediation 
of  the  mechanical  and  ideal  views  of  the 
world.  Of  the  ultimate  solution  of  this 
problem,  Christian  theology  can  have  no 
doubt,  for  it  is  involved  in  its  central  faith 
in  a  God  of  love.  And,  meanwhile,  it  ad- 

1  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  p.  640. 


54  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

dresses  itself  without  misgivings  to  the  adjust- 
ment of  its  relation  to  natural  science. 

I.  Science1  s  Threefold  Restriction  of  Itself . — 
Theology  accepts,  in  the  first  place,  science's 
own  threefold  restriction  of  itself — to  experi- 
ence, to  the  tracing  of  purely  causal  connec- 
tions, and  to  phenomena.  The  restriction  to 
experience  implies  that  science  knows  that 
it  cannot  anticipate,  independently  of  experi- 
ence in  at  least  allied  lines,  even  in  the  most 
perfect  cases.  And  this  means  that  the  full 
cause  is  never  really  present  for  science,  even 
in  its  strictly  scientific  investigations,  in  the 
sense  that  by  any  possible  analysis  of  present 
conditions  without  experience  it  can  prophesy 
the  results.  It  is  important  that  we  should 
modestly  bear  this  fact  in  mind,  as  a  restric- 
tion which  science  must  make,  in  a  little 
fuller  sense  than  it  has  sometimes  recog- 
nized, upon  itself.  Spencer's  "Unknowable" 
demands  thus  a  certain  immediate  scientific 
recognition.  Lotze  does  not  over-state  the 
facts  when  he  says:  "We  deceive  ourselves 
when  we  imagine  we  can  derive  the  modes 
in  which  things  act  on  one  another,  as  self- 
evident  results  from  the  particular  properties 
that  now  constitute  their  nature,  and  from 
the  joint  influence  of  the  circumstances  of 


SCIENTIFIC    INFLUENCES  55 

each  occasion.  Honest  consideration,  on  the 
contrary,  leads  us  to  make  the  acknowledge- 
ment that  the  effects  actually  presented  to  us 
by  experience  are  not  to  be  got  as  necessary 
conclusions  from  these  premises  alone,  how- 
ever we  may  analyze  and  recombine  their 
content,  but  that  an  unknown  power,  as  it 
were,  having  respect  to  something  that  we 
do  not  meet  with  among  these  prior  condi- 
tions, has  annexed  to  their  form  the  particu- 
lar form  of  the  result."1 

Science's  restriction  of  itself  to  the  trac- 
ing of  purely  causal  connections  has  been 
already  dealt  with ;  but  this  restriction  and 
its  restriction  to  phenomena  necessarily  assign 
to  philosophy  all  ultimate  questions.  Sci- 
ence, as  such,  does  not  ask  what  force,  or 
matter,  or  being,  or  change,  are  in  them- 
selves. By  the  very  terms  of  its  problems,  it 
asks  only  after  the  actual  causal  connections 
of  phenomena  already  there,  and  therefore 
inevitably  excludes  all  questions  especially  of 
ultimate  origin  and  destiny.  Moreover,  it 
should  be  noted,  since  the  scientific  question 
is  one  of  process  merely,  and  since  no  one 
thinks  of  seeing  God  at  work  in  the  changes 
of  nature  like  a  man,  that  the  process  would 

1  Microcosmus,  Vol.  I,  p.  382. 


56  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

seem  the  same  to  the  observer,  whether  he 
thought  it  purely  mechanical  or  wholly  due 
to  God. 

2.  The  Universality  of  Law.  —  In  the  sec- 
ond place,  theology  accepts  unreservedly 
science's  main  contention  of  the  universality 
of  law,  that  mechanism  is  absolutely  univer- 
sal in  extent,  though  it  requires  that  the 
principle  shall  be  exactly  defined.  It  asks, 
that  is,  that  it  shall  be  noted  that  the  princi- 
ple is  universality  of  law — not,  as  much  talk 
would  seem  to  imply,  uniformity  of  law. 
There  has  been  an  amazing  haziness  con- 
cerning this  simple  point.  The  true  scien- 
tific contention  is,  not  that  laws  are  always 
and  everywhere  the  same,  but  that  there  is 
always  law.  Theology  can  the  less  consent  to 
the  replacing  of  the  universality  of  law  by 
the  uniformity  of  law,  because  it  has  itself 
accepted  from  science  the  theory  of  evolution, 
and  so  must  insist  on  an  interpretation  of 
the  universality  of  law  consistent  therewith. 
But  what  evolution  gives  us  is  exactly  not 
uniformity  of  law  but,  as  we  shall  see,  suc- 
cessive stages  with  new  laws  coming  in  and 
becoming  dominant,  that  before  had  not  at 
all  appeared.  The  new  higher  stage  is  prac- 
tically a  miracle  from  the  standpoint  of  the 


SCIENTIFIC    INFLUENCES  57 

lower  stage,  though  the  higher  laws  use  the 
lower  without  contradicting  them. 

Theology  asks  further,  in  the  interest  of 
exactness  of  thought,  that  it  shall  be  clearly 
recognized  that,  in  strictness,  laws  cannot 
be  spoken  of  as  existing  at  all,  except  in 
one  of  two  ways :  either  as  the  actual  mode 
of  action  of  existing  things,  or  as  the  formu- 
lation, in  the  mind  of  an  observer,  of  this 
mode  of  action.  It  is  impossible,  therefore, 
to  affirm  a  sphere  of  eternal  self-existent 
laws  preceding  or  independent  of  all  existing 
being.  Laws  cannot  preexist,  nor  have  any 
existence  of  their  own  apart  from  all  real 
existing  things.  In  strict  accuracy,  then, 
laws  can  do  nothing;  they  cause  nothing; 
and  finally  explain  nothing.  They  are  our 
own  formulations,  based  on  experience,  of  the 
way  in  which  things  act,  or,  in  any  ultimate 
statement,  of  the  modes  of  God's  activity. 

With  this  guarding  of  the  principle, 
theology  may  not  only  accept,  but  itself 
vigorously  affirm  on  ideal  grounds,  the  uni- 
versality of  law.  The  interests  of  religion 
and  science,  or  of  an  ideal  and  mechanical 
view,  are  by  no  means  in  such  opposition 
here  as  is  often  assumed.  Religion  wishes 
no  lawless  world ;  indeed  it  has  as  great  an 


58  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

interest  as  science  in  asserting  a  sphere  of 
law.  For  a  sphere  of  law  is  necessary  in 
order  to  any  growth  in  knowledge  through 
experience,  since,  if  there  were  no  law, 
nothing  learned  to-day  would  be  of  any  value 
to-morrow.  Nor  could  there  be  any  growth 
in  power  without  law,  for  all  our  power  of 
accomplishment  depends  wholly  on  know- 
ledge of  the  laws  of  the  forces  with  which 
we  deal.  Growth  in  character,  moreover, 
is  similarly  conditioned.  For  in  a  lawless 
world,  not  only  would  the  fundamental  sup- 
positions of  a  moral  sphere  be  set  aside,  but 
it  would  be  impossible  to  learn  any  of  the 
practical  applications  of  the  law  of  love.  A 
sphere  of  law,  therefore,  is  the  only  possible 
sphere  for  a  progressive  being,  and  it  is 
precisely  his  progressiveness  —  his  capacity  of 
indefinite  growth  —  that  mainly  distinguishes 
man  intellectually  from  the  lower  animals ; 
and  with  man  all  ideal  interests  come  in. 
Every  ideal  point  of  view,  then,  is  concerned 
to  insist  upon  a  sphere  of  law.  It  is  further 
to  be  noticed  especially  that  freedom  and 
law  are  not  set  over  against  each  other  in 
the  way  often  supposed ;  but  rather  that  a 
sphere  of  law  is  necessary  to  give  any 
significance  to  freedom  itself,  the  condition 


SCIENTIFIC    INFLUENCES  59 

of  character;  for  choices  look  to  ends,  and 
there  can  be  no  accomplishment  of  an  end 
without  law.  For  still  another  and  funda- 
mental reason,  religion  can  brook  no  lawless 
world ;  for  to  allow  such  a  world  would 
make  God  play  fast  and  loose  with  his 
creatures.  In  order,  then,  to  the  foundation 
faith  in  the  fidelity  and  trustworthiness  of 
God  himself,  there  must  be  law. 

In  its  own  distinct  sphere  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  life,  moreover,  theology  distinctly 
welcomes  the  idea  of  law.  Drummond, 
more  than  any  other  man,  has  brought  this 
home  to  the  religious  consciousness  of  our 
generation,  and  it  is  his  greatest  contribution 
—  not  that  there  is  the  same  law  for  the  nat- 
ural and  the  spiritual  world  (as  he  at  first 
affirmed) ,  but  that  there  is  law ;  that  there 
are  definite  conditions  to  be  fulfilled  for  any 
spiritual  attainment,  that  these  conditions 
may  be  known,  and  that  when  fulfilled  you 
may  count  on  the  results.  Theology  has 
much  to  gain  in  clearness  and  precision  of 
statement,  and  in  power  of  appeal,  in  the 
development  of  this  line  of  thought. 

These  varied  and  most  signicant  consid- 
erations ought  certainly  to  make  it  unmis- 
takably clear  that  the  religious,  equally  with 


6O  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  scientific,  interest  demands  a  law-abiding 
universe. 

The  whole  ideal  contention,  and  the 
interest  of  theology,  therefore,  are  not  at  all 
against  law,  against  mechanism ;  theology 
must  rather,  with  science,  insist  upon  this. 
The  contention  is  that  mechanism  is  means 
only,  and  means  must  not  be  mistaken  for 
ends  nor  dominate  ends.  And  in  this  conten- 
tion, every  man,  scientist  or  not,  is  interested^ 
No  man  is  without  concern  in  the  question, 
Is  there  any  really  rational  universe,  with 
any  justifiable  end  ?  Have  ideals  of  any  kind 
any  real  place  in  this  universe  ?  The  simple 
fact  that  the  so-called  "problem  of  evil"  is 
a  universal  problem,  that  it  necessarily  arises 
for  every  thoughtful  man,  is  the  best  pos- 
sible proof  that  every  man  actually  makes 
the  assumption  which  underlies  the  ideal 
contention  that  mechanism  is  means  only. 
That  is,  all  these  questionings  concerning 
the  problem  of  evil  assume  that  the  world 
ought  to  have  worth,  and  not  mere  logical 
consistency,  if  it  is  to  be  really  rational. 

It  is  with  this  general  view  of  law  that 
the  question  of  miracle  is  connected. 


CHAPTER  VI 

MIRACLES  IN  THE  LIGHT  OF  MODERN  SCIENCE 

I.   MECHANISM   UNIVERSAL  IN   EXTENT,  BUT  SUBOR- 
DINATE IN   SIGNIFICANCE 

THE  religious  interest  in  miracle  is  essen- 
tially the  same  'as  that  involved  in  any  ideal 
view  of  the 'world.  The  insistence  on  miracle 
for  the  religious  man  means  the  insistence 
on  a  living  God,  and  the  insistence  that, 
though  mechanism  is  absolutely  universal  in 
extent,  nevertheless,  as  Lotze  says,  "it  is 
completely  subordinate  in  significance."  We 
are  not  to  make  a  god  of  mechanism,  it 
declares,  nor  put  mechanism  above  God. 
The  universality  of  law,  therefore,  is  to 
theology  only  the  perfect  consistency  in  the 
modes  of  activity  of  God  in  carrying  out  his 
immutable  purpose  of  love.  Hence,  God 
will  always  act  according  to  law  —  that  is, 
in  perfect  consistency  with  his  unchanging 
purpose  of  love;  but  his  action  may  not 
always  be  formulable  under  any  of  the  laws 
of  nature  known  to  us. 

(61) 


62  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

The  religious  world,  this  means,  cannot 
be  content  with  special  acts  of  love  here 
and  there ;  it  must  know  that  all  the  action 
of  God  rests  on  love.  Just  as  in  the  modi- 
fication of  the  design  argument  by  evolution 
we  replace  various  smaller  designs  testifying 
to  intelligence  by  one  all-embracing  design, 
so  do  we  here  replace  the  many  miracles 
testifying  to  love  by  the  one  great  miracle, 
that  an  infinite  purpose  of  love  is  the  source 
of  all.  "All's  love,  yet  all's  law."  That  is, 
the  religious  view  must  hold  that  the 
so-called  "departures  from  the  uniformity  of 
nature"  are  themselves  according  to  law, 
called  out  by  the  same  consistency  of  the 
loving  purpose  of  God  as  the  so-called 
"uniformity."  Rare  phenomena  are  not 
lawless. 

II.   A   QUESTION   OF   FACT 

The  question  of  the  actual  occurrence  of 
what  we  call  miracles  is  primarily  a  question 
of  fact,  as  in  the  case  of  all  new  phenomena 
and  discoveries.  Philosophical  speculation, 
masquerading  as  science,  cannot  be  allowed 
a  priori  to  block  the  way  to  a  really  induc- 
tive scientific  investigation  of  the  facts.  In 
the  case  of  all  asserted  discoveries  of  extra- 


MIRACLES    AND    MODERN    SCIENCE  63 

ordinary  phenomena,  we  simply  ask,  are 
these  things  true?  If  they  are,  then  we  say, 
doubtless  they  are  illustrations  of  a  wider 
law,  a  larger  correlation,  than  we  have 
hitherto  recognized.  So  science  had  to 
proceed,  for  example,  in  the  recognition  of 
the  facts  of  organic  chemistry  and  of  the 
Roentgen  rays.  Just  such  a  procedure, 
and  no  other,  is  required  in  the  case  of 
miracles. 

The  attempts  deliberately  to  eliminate  the 
miraculous  from  the  Gospel  records  have 
scarcely  followed  this  scientific  procedure. 
And,  while  the  subject  is  not  without  its 
difficulties,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say 
that,  from  the  time  of  Paulus  down  to  the 
present,  these  attempts  to  eliminate  the 
miraculous  have  broken  down  of  their  own 
weight.  They  do  not  give  the  impression 
of  a  straightforward  scientific  historical  in- 
quiry. They  start  from  an  a  priori  assump- 
tion ;  the  argument  is  cumbrous ;  and  certain 
entirely  subsidiary  principles  of  explanation 
are  so  greatly  overworked  as  to  leave  a 
wholly  unsatisfying  impression  on  the  mind 
of  one  who  has  really  at  any  time  held  the 
question  open.  And  this  is  written,  with 
even  so  late  and  careful  an  attempt  as  that 


64  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

of  Pfleiderer,  in  his  Philosophy  and  'Develop- 
ment of  Religion,  distinctly  in  mind.  The 
present  is  certainly  no  time  for  men  to  be 
determining  beforehand  what  can  or  cannot 
be  in  the  realm  of  facts. 

This  consideration  is  of  such  importance 
as  to  deserve  detailed  illustration  from  a  re- 
cent case  of  exposition,  concisely  set  forth 
by  the  editor  of  The  Expository  Times:*  "The 
greatest  difficulty  in  the  way  of  disbelieving 
the  miracles  in  the  Gospels  is  the  difficulty 
of  accounting  for  their  existence.  If  Jesus 
did  not  perform  them,  some  one  invented 
them.  Who  invented  them?  And  who  fit- 
ted them  into  their  place?  And  who  made 
them  part  of  the  picture  of  the  Jesus  of  the 
Gospels?  Perhaps  some  one  will  come 
some  day  and  tell  us.  No  one  has  come 
yet.  The  latest  explanation  of  the  existence 
of  the  Gospel  miracles  is  just  as  incredible 
as  the  earliest.  In  his  commentary  on  the 
Synoptic  Gospels,  just  published,  Dr.  G.  L. 
Gary  states  the  three  possible  hypotheses 
which  have  been  suggested  to  account  for 
the  story  —  a  story  told  by  all  the  Synoptists 
—  of  the  healing  of  the  leper.  The  first 
hypothesis  is  that  it  was  made  up  by  one 

1  The  Expository  Times,  August,  1900,  p.  483. 


MIRACLES    AND     MODERN    SCIENCE  65 

of  the  early  disciples  in  imitation  of  the 
story  in  the  Old  Testament  of  the  wonder- 
ful cure  of  Naaman.  'This  hypothesis,'  says 
Dr.  Gary,  'now  has  few,  if  any,  defenders.' 
The  second  hypothesis  is  that  of  the  modern 
Dutch  school  of  criticism.  The  story,  says 
this  school,  was  originally  intended  as  a  sym- 
bolic representation  of  the  helpful  relation 
which  Jesus  sustained  to  the  outcasts  of  so- 
ciety. He  figuratively  called  himself  a  phy- 
sician. Leprosy  is  the  fittest  possible  symbol 
for  the  disease  of  sin.  So  his  cures  of 
moral  leprosy  became  transformed,  in  the 
thought  of  a  succeeding  age,  into  cures  of 
the  bodily  disease.  Dr.  Gary  fears  that  this 
supposition  wants  '  a  solid  basis  of  ascertain- 
able  fact,'  since  Jesus  only  once,  and  then 
indirectly,  calls  himself  a  physician  of  souls. 
One  hypothesis  remains.  It  is  Dr.  Gary's 
own,  though  not  exclusively,  and  he  explains 
it  at  some  length.  Jesus  saw  that  the  leper 
was  really  not  a  leper,  and  told  him  to  go 
to  the  priest,  who  would  pronounce  him 
clean.  The  disciples,  and  indeed  the  man 
himself,  did  not  see  so  clearly  as  Jesus  did. 
They  all  thought  that  his  disease  was  really 
leprosy.  When  the  man  was  pronounced 
clean  they  saw  that  they  had  been  mistaken. 


66  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

Jesus  was  right.  The  man  had  not  been 
a  leper.  The  incident  would  have  been 
allowed  to  pass,  and  would  probably  have 
been  forgotten,  if  it  had  not  been  that  Jesus 
afterwards  got  the  reputation  of  being  a 
healer  of  disease.  Then  this  case  was  re- 
membered. As  it  passed  from  mouth  to 
mouth  it  was  gradually  elaborated.  And 
when  it  came  to  be  set  down  in  the  Gos- 
pels it  had  assumed  the  proportions  of  a 
striking  miracle."  It  is  not  entirely  easy  to 
believe  this. 

A  really  scientific  history  seems  more 
likely  to  come  to  the  sober  conclusion  of 
Sanday:  "The  truth  is  that  the  historian  who 
tries  to  construct  a  reasoned  picture  of  the 
Life  of  Christ  finds  that  he  cannot  dispense 
with  the  miracles.  He  is  confronted  with 
the  fact  that  no  sooner  had  the  life  of  Jesus 
ended  in  apparent  failure  and  shame  than 
the  great  body  of  Christians — not  an  indi- 
vidual here  and  there,  but  the  great  mass 
of  the  Church — passed  over  at  once  to  the 
fixed  belief  that  he  was  God. 
There  must  have  been  something  about  the 
Life,  a  broad  and  substantial  element  in  it, 
which  they  could  recognize  as  supernatural 
and  divine — not  that  we  can  recognize,  but 


MIRACLES    AND    MODERN    SCIENCE  67 

which  they  could  recognize  with  the  ideas 
of  the  time.  Eliminate  miracles  from  the 
career  of  Jesus,  and  the  belief  of  Chris- 
tians, from  the  first  moment  that  we  have 
undoubted  contemporary  evidence  of  it  (say 
A.  D.  50),  becomes  an  insoluble  enigma."1 

The  great  miracle,  in  fact,  is  always 
Christ  himself, — his  life,  character,  and  teach- 
ing. And  this  is  incontestable  fact.  Here 
now  is  a  great  new  cause.  On  the  principle 
of  causality  itself,  ought  we  not,  as  Dr. 
Abbott  suggests,  to  expect  new  effects? 
And  have  we  fairly  faced  the  difficulties  we 
should  feel,  if  such  works  as  the  Gospels 
attribute  to  Christ  were  not  recorded  of 
him  ?  Suppose  the  miraculous  entirely  elimi- 
nated from  the  record,  should  we  not  raise 
at  once  the  difficulty  involved  in  the  pre- 
ceding consideration,  as  well  as  in  that  of 
Sanday?  Can  Christ,  we  should  say,  be 
the  great  new  cause  we  suppose  him,  and 
no  unusual  phenomena  in  varied  lines  of 
activity  accompany  him?  Should  we  not 
feel  compelled,  too,  to  ask,  must  his  love 
not  have  manifested  itself  in  response  to  the 
needs  about  him,  according  to  his  power? 
The  miracles  are  positively  helpful,  more- 

1  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  Vol.  II,  p.  627. 


68  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

over,  in  showing,  as  Bruce  intimates,  that 
Christianity  is  no  " ultra-spiritualism."  "They 
proclaim  social  salvation,  however  subordi- 
nate in  value  as  compared  with  soul  salvation, 
as  nevertheless  a  part  of  the  grand  redemp- 
tive plan."1 

III.   A   MIRACLE,  NOT  AN   ISOLATED   WONDER 

Our  whole  difficulty  is  really  with  the  "iso- 
lated wonder,"  as  Huxley  himself  admirably 
illustrated  when,  in  supposed  objection  to 
miracles,  he  asked  if  any  testimony  would 
make  it  credible  that  a  centaur  had  been 
seen  trotting  down  Regent  street,  London. 
No,  probably  not;  the  phenomenon  is  abso- 
lutely without  significance  or  connection  with 
any  larger  order.  But  exactly  that  lack  of 
significance  and  connection  with  a  larger 
order  is  most  vigorously  denied  by  the  re- 
ligious man  of  Christian  miracles.  Perhaps 
no  one  has  put  this  point  more  clearly  than 
Dr.  John  H.  Denison:  "Nothing  could  be 
more  marvelous  or  opposed  to  common 
human  experience  than  the  report  that  the 
earth  revolves  around  the  sun ;  yet  we  accept 
that  testimony  of  the  astronomers,  not  because 

1  Apologetics ,  p.  378. 


MIRACLES    AND    MODERN    SCIENCE  69 

there  is  so  much  of  it,  but  because  we  have 
ourselves  attained  to  such  a  notion  of  the 
force  of  gravity  and  the  order  of  the  universe 
that  the  statement  appears  reasonable  to  us. 
Such  evidence,  although  logical  and  abso- 
lutely satisfying,  is  not  immediately  transfer- 
able. A  savage  might  successfully  challenge 
us  to  prove  the  Copernican  theory  to  the  sat- 
isfaction of  his  mind ;  it  would  involve  too 
much  process.  This,  however,  does  not  mini- 
mize the  value  of  the  evidence ;  it  simply  puts 
a  premium  just  where  it  ought  to  be  put,  on 
scientific  education.  The  same  is  true  with 
respect  to  miracles. 

"This,  indeed,  is  the  radical  ground  for 
unbelief  in  any  marvel,  that  it  points  to  noth- 
ing, that  it  stands  by  itself,  apart  from  any 
order  or  causation.  But  the  miracles  do  not 
stand  by  themselves ;  they  are  profoundly  sig- 
nificant ;  they  are  a  part  of  a  vast  and  orderly 
spiritual  movement,  and  those  who  have  per- 
ceived the  significance  and  order  of  that 
movement,  or  who  have  experienced  even  in 
a  small  degree  its  causation,  have  found  in 
these  things  the  strongest  and  most  rational 
evidence  for  a  miraculous  dispensation.  It  is 
true  that  this  evidence  cannot  be  imparted 
by  a  brief  process  to  a  man  destitute  of  spir- 


70  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

itual  perception  or  experience,  but  that  does 
not  invalidate  the  rationality  of  the  evidence ; 
it  puts  a  premium  just  where  it  should  be 
put,  on  spiritual  culture. 

"As  the  philosophy  of  experience  broad- 
ened out,  Hume's  postulate  was  reinforced 
so  as  to  read,  'A  miracle  is  contrary  to  a  law 
of  nature ;  therefore  an  overweighting  amount 
of  evidence  is  required  to  prove  it.'  But  the 
same  lack  of  breadth  soon  appeared  in  this 
postulate.  Our  experience  does  not  cover  the 
whole  breadth  of  nature.  We  are  never  cer- 
tain but  that  some  new  and  larger  order  may 
begin  to  disclose  itself,  and  it  is,  in  fact,  just 
such  a  larger  order  which  the  miracles  appear 
to  suggest  and  always  have  suggested  to  some 
of  the  most  spiritual  and  philosophical  minds 
of  the  race."1 

Let  it  be  clear,  then,  that  religion  has 
no  call  to  defend  the  "isolated  wonder";  its 
interest  does  not  at  all  lie  here.  It  simply 
takes  the  soundly  scientific  position  of  belief 
in  an  all-embracing  order,  and  of  refusal  to 
allow  any  facts  to  be  shut  out  by  a  priori 
speculation  "or  prejudice.  It  believes  that 
such  an  attitude  will  lead  naturally  to  faith 

lw  Current  Delusions  Concerning  Miracles,"  The  New  World, 
September,  1898,  pp.  544,  545. 


MIRACLES    AND    MODERN    SCIENCE  71 

in  the  reasonableness  of  the  direct  living 
adapting  relation  of  God  to  his  creation, 
involved  in  the  assertion  of  miracle. 


IV.    GOD'S   RELATION   TO  PERSONS 

God  is  a  spirit ;  he  may  be  supra-personal, 
as  Paulsen  says;  he  certainly  cannot  be  sub- 
personal.  There  is  therefore  no  sound  rea- 
son, philosophical  or  scientific,  for  denying 
him  personal  relation  with  other  spirits, — 
direct  access  to  them.  We  have  such  access 
to  other  minds.  Can  it  be  that  he  who  made 
them  and  knows  every  avenue  of  approach  to 
them  has  not?  We  can  change  the  course 
of  life  of  our  fellow  creatures.  Is  he  power- 
less? Even  Pfleiderer  can  say:  "And  why 
should  it  be  less  possible  for  God  to  enter 
into  loving  fellowship  with  us  than  for  men 
to  do  so  with  each  other?  I  should  be  in- 
clined to  think  that  he  is  even  more  capable 
of  doing  so."1  To  deny  such  direct  access 
of  God  to  the  human  spirit  is  really  to  deny 
the  possibility  of  revelation,  to  deny  prayer, 
to  deny  any  living  contact  with  God,  to  deny 
any  real  living  concrete  God  at  all.  It  is  to 
go  back  to  something  very  like  the  cast-off 

1  Quoted  by  Orr,  The  Christian  View  of  God  and  the  World,  p.  63. 


72  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

deism  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Such  a 
doctrine  is  already  condemned  by  history. 
And  a  man  is  not  likely  long  to  stay  in  that 
position.  Professor  Orr  seems  wholly  justi- 
fied in  saying:  "The  kind  of  theism  that  re- 
mains after  the  Christian  element  has  been 
removed  out  of  it  is  not  one  fitted  to  satisfy 
either  the  reason  or  the  heart."1  And  one 
must  go  farther  and  say,  in  the  language  of 
one  of  the  greatest  minds  of  our  century : 
"There  is  nothing  whatever  that  stands  in 
opposition  to  the  further  conviction  that 
God,  at  particular  moments  and  in  particular 
persons,  may  have  stood  nearer  to  humanity, 
or  may  have  revealed  himself  at  such  mo- 
ments and  in  such  persons  in  a  more  emi- 
nent way  than  at  other  moments  and  in  other 
persons.  ...  It  is  even  without  doubt 
legitimate  to  regard  the  relation  in  which  he 
[Christ]  stood  to  God  as  absolutely  unique, 
not  only  as  to  degree  but  also  as  to  its  essen- 
tial quality."2 

V.    GOD'S   RELATION   TO   NATURE 

So  far,  therefore,  as  miracle  implies  only 
direct   relation  with   men,  we   find   no  diffi- 

I0p.  CV/.,p.  49. 

JLotze,  Outlines  of  the  Philosophy  of  Religion,  Ginn's  edition, 
pp.  149,  150. 


MIRACLES    AND    MODERN    SCIENCE  73 

culty.  Our  difficulty  is  felt  only  in  the 
world  of  nature.  And  here  a  direct  solution 
may  be  open  to  us  through  psycho-physical 
laws  in  the  control  of  the  human  mind  over 
body  and  matter.  But  independently  of  this 
suggestion,  it  may  be  of  value  to  analyze  a 
little  more  perfectly  the  difficulty  felt  as  to 
miracle  in  the  world  of  nature.  Suppose 
now  some  miraculous  occurrence  in  nature. 
We  should  search  for  the  conditions,  the 
cause.  We  might  be  able  to  trace  the 
occurrence  a  certain  distance  but  no  farther, 
for  this  is  what  makes  it  seem  miraculous. 
Is  it  now  our  thought  that  God  came  in  at 
just  this  point  directly,  just  as  a  man  might, 
putting  his  hand  in  from  without,  and  chang- 
ing conditions  absolutely  without  means  or 
in  utter  contrast  with  the  usual  relation  of 
God  to  nature  ?  Can  we  really  carry  such 
a  conception  through,  or  has  religion  any 
interest  in  so  doing?  Do  we  really  mean 
to  make  God's  relation  to  nature  exactly 
the  same  as  our  own,  except  that  he  has 
greater  knowledge  of  its  laws  and  therefore 
greater  power  in  its  manipulation?  Is  this 
not  to  put  him  in  an  entirely  external  and 
finite  relation  to  nature?  putting  laws  above 
God  in  the  same  sense  in  which  they  are 


74  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

above  us  ?  Should  we  not  rather  say, — 
Doubtless  God's  relation  to  nature  in  this 
miraculous  occurrence  remains  just  what  it 
always  is?  The  entire  course  of  his  action 
here  we  are  unable  completely  to  follow, 
but  if  we  could,  do  we  not  feel  sure  that 
we  should  trace  what  we  call  an  unbroken 
connection ;  that  is,  that  we  should  find 
action  wholly  consistent  with  the  rest  of 
God's  action  elsewhere,  and  that  means 
according  to  law  (though  not  now  known 
to  us)?  How  otherwise  indeed  do  we  suc- 
ceed at  all  in  preserving  our  belief  in  the 
universality  of  law  in  the  face  of  our  con- 
tinually enlarging  knowledge  of  nature  ? 

There  are  two  views  often  put  in  oppo- 
sition to  each  other  which  are  imbued 
fundamentally  with  the  same  error:  one, 
that  laws  are  external  to  God,  above  him, 
and  so  machinery  supreme — a  false  victory 
for  the  scientific  view;  the  other,  that  God 
is  external  to  nature,  as  a  finite  being — a 
false  victory  for  the  religious  view.  Here 
again,  then,  there  is  both  a  scientific  and  a 
religious  interest  at  work.  It  is  not  enough 
to  say:  God  has  not  tied  his  hands,  will  not 
be  a  slave  to  his  own  laws.  This,  while 
right  in  popular  terms  and  in  intention, 


MIRACLES    AND    MODERN    SCIENCE  75 

assumes  just  that  external  and  finite  relation 
of  God  to  nature,  which  religion  too  cannot 
allow.  The  laws  have  no  independent  exist- 
ence ;  they  grow  themselves  right  out  of 
the  infinite  purpose  of  love  which  we  wish 
to  defend.  Even  those  few  laws  which  we 
do  so  far  know,  are  at  all  because  love 
demanded  them;  they  will  never  contravene 
love,  but  they  are  themselves  no  exhaustive 
expression  of  the  richness  of  the  Infinite 
Life  and  Love.  Perhaps  the  best  concep- 
tion we  can  form  is  that  of  a  complex 
organism  of  laws,  physical,  psychical,  and 
psycho-physical,  which  immediately  and  con- 
tinuously reflects  and  expresses  the  meaning 
and  content  of  the  Infinite  Life ;  and  whose 
unity  and  consistency  are  simply  the  unity 
and  consistency  of  the  Eternal  Spirit  of 
Love,  though  the  full  meaning  of  the  life 
of  that  Spirit  we  may  be  sure  infinitely 
transcends  even  this  highest  conception  of 
its  expression.  At  present  it  seems  most 
easy  and  natural  to  conceive,  through  the 
medium  of  psycho-physical  laws,  God's  lov- 
ing adaptations  of  his  action  in  nature  to 
the  highest  needs  of  his  children  (which  is 
the  essence  of  the  religious  assertion  of 
miracle) .  But  whatever  the  special  mode 


76  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

of  conception,  as  certainly  as  the  ministries 
of  the  loving  spirit  are  not  inconsistent  with 
the  purpose  of  love,  so  certainly  will  what- 
ever the  Infinite  Love  of  God  requires  find 
unstinted  and  consistent  expression  of  itself 
in  that  complex  of  activities  which  we  strive 
to  formulate  in  laws. 

No  doubt  in  theology  the  trend  should  al- 
ways be  away  from  the  mechanical;  and  no 
doubt  in  science  the  trend  should  always  be 
toward  the  mechanical;  and  no  doubt  in  all 
proximate  inquiries  theology  does  have  to 
do  only  with  the  ideal  interpretation,  science 
only  with  the  causal  connection ;  no  doubt 
indeed  science  as  such  has  no  other  prob- 
lem than  causal  connections, —  but  in  ulti- 
mate thinking,  both  the  theologian  and  the 
scientist  as  men  cannot  refuse  to  face  the 
question  of  the  possible  unity  of  the  causal 
connections  and  the  ideal  interpretation,  and 
this  is  at  bottom  the  question  of  miracle. 
The  scientist  must  ask,  Has  the  complex  of 
laws  any  real  final  meaning?  And  there  is 
no  answer  short  of  the  purpose  of  love  in 
the  Infinite.  The  theologian  must  ask,  How 
does  the  ideal  meaning  which  I  give  to  the 
Infinite  Life  express  itself  in  the  actual 
world  of  law  which  I  find?  And  he  can 


MIRACLES    AND    MODERN    SCIENCE  77 

only  say :  The  unchanging  purpose  of  the 
Infinite  Love  finds  its  partial  expression  in 
the  unity  and  consistency  of  a  great  com- 
plex organism  of  laws,  physical,  psychical, 
and  psycho-physical. 


VI.   THE   EVIDENCE   OF  THE   LARGER   DOMINANT 
SPIRITUAL   ORDER 

Evolution  itself,  we  shall  see,  points  to 
just  such  a  larger  dominant  spiritual  order, 
in  that  man  is  its  goal,  with  whom  the 
physical  evolution  is  arrested  and  the  spirit- 
ual unending  evolution  begins.  According 
to  the  law  of  cyclical  movement,  this  last 
developed  spiritual  order  ought  to  dominate 
the  lower  and  use  it,  though  it  does  not 
contradict  it.  Moreover  with  man,  as  must 
be  more  fully  pointed  out  later,  personal 
relations, —  clear  relations  of  self  -  revelation 
and  answering  faith — come  in.  It  is  in  full 
harmony  with  the  laws  of  this  stage,  that 
God  should  reveal  himself  to  the  open 
mind. 

This  dominance  of  the  spiritual  order, 
moreover,  we  have  already  seen,  is  really 
required  by  any  ideal  view,  that  is,  by  any 
finally  rational  view  of  the  world ;  for  only 


78  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

that  world  can  be  ultimately  defended  as 
rational,  in  which  moral  and  spiritual  ends 
rule. 

To  such  a  spiritual  order  too,  especially 
the  facts  of  the  Old  Testament  and  New 
Testament  revelation — above  all  Christ — dis- 
tinctly point.  Here  is  a  great  actual  world 
movement,  which  cannot  be  ignored,  if  we 
mean  to  face  the  facts.  To  quote  Dr. 
Denison  once  more :  "When  science  con- 
fronts a  fact  like  the  consciousness  of  the 
prophets  and  apostles,  if  she  cannot  account 
for  it,  she  interrogates  it;  she  endeavors  to 
find  out  the  contents  of  that  consciousness, 
asking,  Is  it  an  ethical  consciousness?  Is  it 
rational  and  trustworthy?  This  is  not  mere 
guess-work;  the  question  is,  Do  its  ideas, 
sensibilities  and  purposes,  form  a  coherent 
and  transparent  unity?  Thus  Keim  has  stud- 
ied the  consciousness  of  Paul.  Thus  men 
for  ages  have  studied  the  consciousness  of 
Jesus;  and  the  more  closely  we  study  their 
consciousness  from  the  psychological  stand- 
point, the  more  do  we  discover  its  reason- 
ableness, coherence  and  normality.  Paul 
and  Christ  are  trustworthy  witnesses ;  they 
speak  understandingly  of  their  inner  experi- 
ence ;  they  have  explored  and  tested  their 


MIRACLES    AND    MODERN    SCIENCE  79 

own  spiritual  phenomena.  Careful  observa- 
tion of  spiritual  facts  and  laws  is  indicated 
by  the  words  of  both.  Their  ethical  con- 
sciousness far  transcends  ours,  but  it  is  no 
muddle  to  them ;  they  understand  and 
announce  the  laws  of  their  experience.  It 
is,  therefore,  scientific  to  accept  their  testi- 
mony. That  testimony  is,  'The  Holy  Spirit 
spoke  to  us ;  the  life  of  God  was  manifested ; 
we  were  intrusted  with  an  authoritative 
message;  we  had  an  economy  of  the  spirit.' 
This  testimony  is  unimpeachable ;  no  fact  of 
science  contradicts  it ;  no  overweighting 
testimony  is  needed.  If  any  were,  we  have 
overwhelming  corroboration  in  the  whole 
history  of  this  unique  esoteric  order.  As 
we  have  already  seen,  it  accords  with  the 
only  tenable  hypothesis ;  it  is  the  least  of 
two  marvels ;  we  are  forced  to  choose 
between  a  divine  miracle  and  a  miraculous 
delusion  which  makes  for  righteousness." 

The  question  of  miracle  is,  then,  nowhere 
the  question  of  the  "isolated  wonder,"  but 
everywhere  rather  the  question  of  the  wider 
law,  the  larger  correlation,  the  dominant  spir- 
itual order  increasingly  clear  to  a  growing 
spiritual  culture,  the  consistency  of  the  one 
great  loving  purpose  of  a  God  great  enough 


80  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

and  loving  enough  to  be  all  that  his  children 
need. 

The  discussion  of  the  special  relation  of 
theology  to  the  theory  of  evolution,  as  held 
by  scientists,  will  throw  some  further  light 
on  this  question  of  miracle,  but  deserves 
separate  treatment. 


CHAPTER   VII 
THE   SPECIAL  BEARING   OF  EVOLUTION 

IN  the  relation  of  theology  to  natural 
science,  theology  not  only  accepts  science's 
three-fold  restriction  of  itself,  and  its  insist- 
ence upon  the  universality  of  law;  but  it 
also  accepts  the  theory  of  evolution  as  a 
general  statement  of  the  method  of  God's 
working.  And  theology  may  receive  Le 
Conte's  definition  of  evolution  as  "continu- 
ous progressive  change  according  to  certain 
laws  and  by  means  of  resident  forces " ;  de- 
noting the  laws,  with  him,  as  "the  law  of 
differentiation,  the  law  of  progress  of  the 
whole,  and  the  law  of  cyclical  movement."1 
To  all  this,  theology  need  make  no  objec- 
tion ;  and  in  accepting  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion, it  would  only  renew  its  own  older  em- 
phasis upon  the  immanence  of  God. 

I.    THE    NEED   OF   PRECISION    IN    OUR  THOUGHT   OF 
EVOLUTION 

The  theologian  wishes  only  that  there 
should  be  real  precision  of  thought  as  to 

1  Evolution  and  Its  Relation  to  Religious  Thought,  pp.  8,  it. 
F  (80 


82  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

what  the  evolution  theory  is.  He  has  a  sus- 
picion that,  as  in  many  another  case,  diffi- 
culty comes  only  because  the  principle  is 
not  carried  completely  through.  The  trouble 
in  evolution  is  that  we  are  only  half  evolu- 
tionists. Theology,  therefore,  is  interested 
only  to  insist,  in  the  first  place,  that  evolu- 
tion means  real  evolution  —  a  succession  of 
stages  with  new  phenomena  and  new  laws  — 
not  uniformity  or  identity  of  laws ;  and  this 
the  law  of  cyclical  movement  itself  asserts. 
Illustrating  this  law,  Le  Conte  himself  says : 
"When  each  group  of  faculties  culminates 
and  declines,  it  does  not  perish,  but  only  be- 
comes subordinate  to  the  next  higher  group."1 
Let  it  be  clearly  seen,  therefore,  that  evolu- 
tion involves  a  succession  of  stages  with  new 
phenomena  and  new  laws. 

In  the  second  place,  theology  insists  that, 
if  we  are  not  to  be  only  half  evolutionists, 
it  must  be  seen  that  evolution  does  not  stop 
with  the  animal  series,  but  includes  the  human 
stage.  Evolution  cannot  play  double  with  its 
own  conception,  making  it  mean  now  con- 
tinuous progress,  and  now  a  dead  level.  If, 
in  the  interest  of  maintaining  the  close  con- 
nection of  man  with  the  animal  world,  it  is 

lop.  at.,  p.  23. 


THE     SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  83 

asserted  that  man  clearly  belongs  in  the  evo- 
lution series,  then  this  fact  cannot  be  ignored 
or  denied  when  we  ask  as  to  the  meaning  of 
the  entire  evolution.  We  may  not  ignore  in 
one  part  of  our  argument  what  we  empha- 
size in  another  part.  There  is  to  be,  then, 
no  ambiguity  when  we  say  evolution  includes 
the  human  stage.  The  theory  of  evolution, 
thus,  does  not  mean  the  putting  of  every- 
thing on  a  dead  level,  especially  not  a  de- 
grading of  everything  to  the  lowest  level. 
That  was  an  early  and  crude  misunderstand- 
ing of  the  evolution  theory;  but  it  is,  in  fact, 
quite  inconsistent  with  any  real  evolution. 

The  heart  of  the  ideal  contention  concern- 
ing evolution  may  be  said  to  be  that,  when 
the  new  appears,  it  is  really  new, —  it  has  not 
appeared  before.  It  was  not  really  present 
before.  We  are  at  least  not  to  make  the 
great  but  common  mistake  of  supposing  that 
the  evolving  organism  contains  in  itself  the 
source  of  all  that  follows, — that,  as  Drum- 
mond  puts  it,  the  plant  has  grown  out  of 
its  roots.  "Evolution  is  not  to  unfold  from 
within;  it  is  to  infold  from  without."  A 
germ  can  do  nothing  without  environment; 
and  it  is  not  in  the  germ  alone  but  in  the 
entire  environment,  that,  even  in  the  strict 


84  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

scientific  sense,  we  are  to  look  for  the  con- 
ditions of  the  succeeding  stage.  And,  more- 
over, as  Drummond  says,  "the  environment 
itself  rises  with  every  evolution  of  any  form 
of  life."1 

We  cannot  assume  even  that  the  succeed- 
ing stage  is  present  in  the  sense  that  all  its 
conditions  are  fully  present,  before  the  new 
stage  appears.  We  are  not  to  fool  our- 
selves, in  learned  delusion,  with  the  con- 
venient conception  of  potentiality,  and  say 
that  the  next  stage  is  potentially  present;  if 
all  the  conditions  of  a  thing  are  fully  pres- 
ent, the  thing  must  appear  coincidentally. 
It  is  not  possible  to  conceive,  when  we 
think  clearly,  that  all  the  conditions  of  a 
phenomenon  are  fully  present,  and  yet  that 
the  phenomenon  tarries.  Something  really 
new,  then,  appears,  in  the  course  of  evolu- 
tion. 

One  other  consideration  deserves  atten- 
tion, in  this  discussion  of  the  new  in  evo- 
lution. We  have  already  seen  that,  even  in 
the  most  perfect  case,  science  cannot  antici- 
pate the  next  stage  in  any  process  indepen- 
dently of  previous  experience.  Least  of  all 

1  Drummond 's  The  Ascent  of  Man,  Chap.  X,  Involution;  proba- 
bly the  strongest  part  of  Drummond's  discussion  of  evolution. 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  85 

can  it  do  so  in  the  successive  stages  of  evo- 
lution. This  means  that,  in  the  strict  scien- 
tific sense,  the  full  cause  of  the  next  stage  is 
not  present  in  that  now  passing,  in  such  sense 
as  to  reveal  itself  to  any  possible  analysis  of 
ours.  To  deny  the  reality  of  the  new,  under 
such  circumstances,  is  little  short  of  sophistry. 
Not,  then,  as  a  religious  or  ideal  contention, 
but  in  simple  recognition  of  the  facts,  if  we 
wish  to  be  thorough-going  in  our  concep- 
tion of  evolution,  we  seem  driven  to  say  with 
Lotze:1  "Thus  at  bottom  everything  finite 
works  only  by  that  in  it  which  makes  it  se- 
cretly better  than  it  seems,  by  the  essential 
power  of  the  Infinite  latent  even  in  it;  the 
power  and  capability  of  action  belong  not  to 
the  outer  wrapping  of  particular  properties, 
but  solely  to  the  core,  in  so  far  as  therein 
enveloped.  Now,  if  we  give  the  name  of 
nature  of  a  thing  to  the  fused  and  simplified 
duplicity  of  the  Infinite  Being  that  has  in  it 
assumed  this  particular  form,  or  of  the  finite 
form  that  has  become  filled  with  the  Infinite, 
we  shall  be  entitled  from  this  nature  of  the 
thing  to  derive  all  modes  of  its  behavior  as 
necessary  consequences" — but  only  from  the 
nature  of  the  thing  so  defined.  For  all  finite 

lOp.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  384. 


86  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

investigation,  then,  the  reality  of  the  new  in 
evolution  cannot  be  questioned ;  and  Le 
Conte  is  right,  moreover,  in  affirming  that 
evolution  leads  naturally  to  increased  em- 
phasis on  the  immanence  of  God. 

It  would  also  help  many  if  they  recog- 
nized that  essentially  the  same  difficulties 
are  involved  in  the  development  of  the  in- 
dividual as  in  the  evolution  of  the  race.  It 
is  true  of  the  individual  that  he  passes  through 
all  the  stages  from  the  lowest  animal  to  the 
highest  human  stage,  and  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  as  of  the  race  we 
can  draw  no  sharp  lines  between  stages;  and 
yet  it  is  perfectly  evident  also  that  differ- 
ences, real  and  profound,  have  come  in. 
There  is  a  time,  for  example,  when  the 
child  is  clearly  not  a  responsible  moral  be- 
ing; there  is  a  later  time  when  just  as 
clearly  he  is  responsible,  but  one  cannot  say 
just  when  the  transition  took  place.  We  do 
not  seriously  question  the  reality  of  the  new 
in  the  development  of  the  individual ;  the 
difficulties  are  not  greater  in  the  evolution 
of  the  race.  Due  weight  has  seldom  been 
given  to  this  parallel  between  the  develop- 
ment of  the  individual  and  the  evolution  of 
the  race;  for,  as  Schmid  has  clearly  pointed 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  87 

out,  "the  idea  of  a  development  of  species, 
and  also  of  man,  does  not  offer  to  theistic 
reasoning  any  new  or  any  other  difficulties 
than  those  which  have  been  long  present, 
and  which  had  found  their  solution  in  the 
religious  consciousness  long  before  any  idea 
of  evolution  disturbed  the  mind."1 

It  may  be  assumed,  then,  as  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  individual,  that  the  pro- 
cess is  ever  so  gradual,  and  that  when  the 
conditions  for  the  appearance  of  the  new 
stage  are  completed,  it  will  appear;  but 
when  the  new  stage  appears  —  life,  self-con- 
sciousness, moral  responsibility,  or  what  not 
—  it  is  really  new.  It  had  not  appeared 
before.  Courtney2  maintained  the  whole 
ideal  contention  much  more  fully,  perhaps, 
than  he  knew,  when  he  wrote  fifteen  years 
ago:  WI  was  an  anthropoid  ape  once,  a  mol- 
lusc, an  ascidian,  a  bit  of  protoplasm;  but, 
whether  by  chance  or  providence,  I  am  not 
now.  When  I  was  an  ape,  I  thought  as  an 
ape,  I  acted  as  an  ape,  I  lived  as  an  ape ; 
but  when  I  became  a  man,  I  put  away 
apish  things.  Man's  moral  nature  is  what 

1  See  Theories  of  Darwin,  pp.  265  ff.     This  book  is  one  of  the 
most  thorough  of  all  the  discussions  of  the  bearings  of  evolution. 

2  Studies  in  Philosophy,  Chap.  VI. 


88  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

it   is,    not   what  it   was."     Otherwise,   there 
would  be  no  real  evolution. 


II.    THE   GENERAL   GAINS   OF   THE   EVOLUTION 
POINT   OF   VIEW 

If,  then,  that  conception  of  evolution  is 
maintained  which  its  own  definition  and 
laws  require,  theology  finds  no  religious  or 
ideal  consideration  that  need  hinder  it  in 
accepting  the  most  absolute  and  radical 
form  of  the  evolution  theory  without  any 
thought  of  intervention  at  any  point  in  the 
process.  It  feels  no  interest  in  insisting 
upon  certain  unbridged  gaps  in  the  series 
as  essential  at  all  to  a  religious  view  of  the 
world ;  though  many  have  conceived  that  all 
religion  is  here  at  stake.  The  fact  is,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  we  can  as  little  do  with- 
out God  at  any  point  as  at  these  supposed 
gaps ;  so  that  in  a  thorough-going  view  it 
is  indifferent  whether  we  say,  there  are  in 
truth  gaps  everywhere,  or  there  are  no  gaps 
at  all.  The  most  absolute  evolution  theory, 
so  long  as  it  is  scientific  at  all,  can  be  only  a 
description  of  the  process  by  which  God 
has  worked,  of  the  method  which  he  has 
employed.  Theology  is  perfectly  ready  to 


THE  SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  89 

accept  the  facts,  whatever  they  may  be.  As 
it  has  been  well  said:  "Whichever  way  of 
creation  God  may  have  chosen,  in  none  can 
the  dependence  of  the  universe  on  him  be- 
come slacker,  in  none  be  drawn  closer."1 

And  more  than  this  is  true.  Not  only  is 
the  religious  interest  here  not  opposed  to 
the  scientific;  in  one  important  particular  it 
is  identical  with  it.  For  its  own  sake,  the- 
ology can  remain  satisfied  no  longer  with 
the  old,  inconsistent  view  of  a  virtual  inde- 
pendence of  the  world  in  the  larger  part  of 
it,  and  of  direct  dependence  on  God  at  cer- 
tain points  only,  where  we  cannot  yet  trace 
the  process  of  God's  working.  It  is  quite 
unwilling  to  say  God  is  only  where  we  can- 
not understand  him.  It  is  quite  unwilling 
to  admit  that  increasing  knowledge  of  God's 
working  is  progressive  elimination  of  God 
from  the  universe.  It  is  quite  unwilling  to 
take  its  stand  on  gaps  or  base  its  arguments 
for  God  on  ignorance.  It  believes  in  God 
—  in  a  God  upon  whom  the  whole  universe, 
in  every  least  atom  of  it,  and  in  every  hum- 
blest spirit  of  it,  is  absolutely  dependent.  Of 
that  dependence  it  is  certain,  and  no  study 
of  the  method  of  it  can  make  it  less  certain. 

1Lotze,  op.  cit.,  Vol.  I,  p.  374. 


9O  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

Aside  from  this  aid  to  a  more  unified 
thinking,  there  are  four  great  general  gains 
for  theology  in  the  evolution  point  of  view. 
In  the  first  place,  evolution  gives  a  larger 
view  of  the  method,  plan,  and  aim  of  God 
in  the  universe.  If  we  may  accept  the  gen- 
eral theory  of  evolution,  we  get  a  far  longer 
sweep  of  the  divine  on-going,  from  which 
we  may  better  judge  as  to  its  direction  and 
goal.  The  advantage  here  is  like  having  a 
larger  portion  of  the  orbit  of  a  planet  access- 
ible in  calculating  its  curve.  Light  upon 
any  part  of  the  process,  by  which  the  uni- 
verse has  come  to  be  what  it  is,  cannot  be 
without  significance  in  understanding  the 
whole. 

In  the  second  place,  and  in  consequence 
of  its  larger  view  of  the  method,  plan,  and 
aim  of  God,  evolution  has  led  to  a  great 
extension  and  strengthening  of  the  design 
argument.  The  precise  contrary  at  first 
seemed  true ;  but  the  final  gain  can  hardly 
be  questioned.  The  added  power  of  the 
argument  in  the  new  form  given  by  evolu- 
tion is  well  illustrated  by  John  Fiske's  The 
Destiny  of  Man.  Man  is  seen  to  be  even 
more  obviously  than  before  the  crown  and 
goal  of  creation;  and  the  whole  develop- 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  9 1 

ment  is  seen  to  point  forward  to  a  moral  and 
spiritual  being,  capable  of  endless  growth, 
and  to  find  therein  its  meaning. 

Two  other  gains  evolution  has  brought  to 
theology.  It  has'  made  it  more  easy  to  see 
the  harmony  between  the  plan  of  God  in 
the  natural  world  and  his  plan  in  the  spirit- 
ual world, —  to  see  that  one  great  plan  really 
embraces  both,  that  one  mind  is  working  to 
a  single  goal  in  the  whole.  And  the  pre- 
vious discussion  should  have  already  made  it 
clear  that  evolution  tends  also  to  an  en- 
larged conception  of  God  in  his  immanence 
in  the  world. 

Theology  rejoices,  then,  in  the  larger 
view  which  evolution  seems  to  give  of  the 
method,  plan,  and  aim  of  God  in  the  uni- 
verse; in  the  great  extension  and  strength- 
ening of  the  design  argument;  in  the  har- 
mony it  brings  into  the  divine  methods ; 
and  in  the  enlarged  conception  of  God  in 
his  immanence  in  the  world. 


III.  AS   TO   THE   DETAILED   APPLICATION   OF 
EVOLUTION   TO  THEOLOGY 

Outside  of  these  general  gains  which  the 
evolution  theory  brings,  and  in  which  most 


92  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

would  probably  agree,  exactly  what  does  the 
detailed  application  of  evolution  to  theologi- 
cal and  ethical  problems  mean?  Is  there 
not  much  confusion  of  thought  here  that 
often  ends  only  in  juggling  with  phrases, 
both  on  the  side  of  the  mechanical  philoso- 
pher and  on  the  side  of  the  religious  apolo- 
gist? 

If  the  entire  evolution  series,  including 
man,  with  his  moral  and  spiritual  nature,  is 
meant,  then  the  later  stages  will  be  recog- 
nized, according  to  the  law  of  cyclical  move- 
ment, as  higher,  and  as  having  their  own 
peculiar  phenomena  and  laws,  and  inter- 
preted accordingly,  but  with  due  regard  to 
the  lower  stages. 

If  the  purely  animal  organic  evolution  is 
meant,  then  the  analogy  is  taken  wholly  from 
the  realm  below  man ;  and,  however  sugges- 
tive, must  obviously,  on  the  principle  of 
evolution  itself,  prove  inadequate  for  an 
interpretation  of  the  intellectual,  moral,  and 
spiritual  life  of  man,  and  must  finally  break 
down,  as  it  does  even  in  the  hands  of  so 
skilful  and  sympathetic  an  interpreter  as 
Drummond.  The  analogy  of  organic  evo- 
lution is  only  the  farthest  possible  exten- 
sion of  the  very  fruitful  analogy  of  the 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  93 

organism  that  has  been  so  influential  in  the 
history  of  thought  from  Paul  to  Shaftesbury 
and  Kant,  and  down  to  modern  ethics  and 
sociology.  It  is  the  most  adequate  analogy 
that  nature  furnishes  us,  and  it  is  useful  to 
apply  it  as  fully  as  possible  in  order  to 
discern  the  essential  harmony  of  the  laws 
in  all  the  stages,  and  to  see  that  the  natural 
world  is  from  the  same  hand  as  the  moral. 
But,  after  all  is  said,  it  is  still  only  an 
analogy  from  nature,  and  quite  inadequate 
to  set  forth  all  the  life  of  the  spirit  in  itself 
and  its  personal  relations.  We  are  spirits, 
not  organisms,  and  society  is  a  society  of  per- 
sons, not  an  organism.  The  theory  of  the 
evolution  of  the  animal  series,  fully  accepted, 
therefore,  in  its  most  radical  form,  is  still  no 
universal  solvent  of  ethical  and  theological 
questions  where  personal  relations  replace 
organic. 

It  is  a  perversion  of  the  evolution  theory 
in  its  real  entirety  to  attempt  to  bring  all 
the  higher  stages  under  the  laws  of  the 
lower.  Shall  we  attempt  to  state  the  laws 
of  the  organism  in  terms  of  crystallization? 
Yet  something  very  like  this  is  what  the  ap- 
plication of  evolution  to  theology  and  ethics 
seems  to  mean  to  many.  The  inadequacy 


94  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

of  the  method  is  seen  from  the  way  in 
which  many  of  the  most  serious  difficulties 
have  to  be  solved  by  bringing  in  considera- 
tions entirely  apart  from  evolution.  Al- 
though, therefore,  the  writer  shares  with  the 
enthusiastic  advocates  of  evolution  in  the- 
ology the  freest  acceptance  of  evolution  in 
its  fullest  form,  he  does  not  have  their  con- 
fidence in  its  wonder-working  power  in 
theology.  It  is  true  that  the  attempt  to 
state  the  entire  ethical  or  sociological  or 
theological  problem  in  biological  terms  —  in 
terms  of  life  —  of  organic  evolution,  is  very 
fascinating  and  sounds  very  scientific;  but  in 
truth  its  success  is  its  failure,  for  it  can  suc- 
ceed only  by  forgetting  the  essential  nature 
of  that  with  which  it  is  dealing — spirit,  not 
physical  life.  Guardedly  used,  the  analogy 
is  helpful,  but  adequate  it  never  is. 

On  the  human  stage  of  evolution  we 
have  reached  persons  and  personal  relations, 
and  the  laws  are  those  of  personal  relations. 
God  will  deal  with  us  on  this  stage  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  principle  of  evolution,  if 
he  deals  with  us  as  persons  and  enters  into 
personal  relations  with  us.  And  this  Chris- 
tianity has  always  believed.  The  application 
of  evolution  here  will  simply  mean,  there- 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  Q5 

fore,  that  in  these  personal  relations  with 
men  God's  self-revelation  at  every  stage  will 
be  adapted  to  men's  capacities  to  receive, 
and  will  progress  as  rapidly  as  possible;  that 
the  complete  revelation  in  Christ  comes  as 
soon  as  there  are  men  who  can  use  it  with 
value  and  can  preserve  it  for  a  progressive 
evaluation  by  those  who  follow. 

Two  or  three  further  considerations  will 
help  to  clearness  here.  We  need  to  remem- 
ber that  any  adequate  view  of  evolution 
must  recognize  evolution  both  in  the  organ- 
ism and  in  the  environment ;  and  that  the 
most  important  factors  in  our  human  envi- 
ronment are  persons,  the  supreme  factor, 
the  Supreme  Person;  and,  moreover,  that  in 
God's  education  of  us  there  is  a  develop- 
ment in  the  personal  relation  adapted  to  our 
growth.  Christ  now,  it  is  to  be  noted,  be- 
longs in  this  divine  evolutionary  self-revela- 
tion of  God,  —  not  properly  in  the  human 
evolution;  and  it  is  in  this  developing  revela- 
tion that  evolution  has  to  view  him.  That 
is,  Christ's  life,  as  a  fact,  can  be  understood 
or  explained,  not  in  the  light  of  a  merely 
human  purpose,  but  only  in  the  light  of  a 
unique  divine  purpose;  but  in  the  progres- 
sive manifestation  of  that  divine  purpose  it 


Q6  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

finds  its  real  and  proper  place.  A  consistent 
view  of  evolution  must  recognize  the  human 
stage,  with  its  personal  relations.  We  have 
no  call  to  show  that  in  these  personal  rela- 
tions of  men  with  men,  or  of  God  with  men, 
all  that  occurs  can  be  brought  under  the 
laws  that  hold  on  the  lower  stages. 

It  is  vain,  therefore,  to  look  for  revolu- 
tionary results  in  the  statement  of  individual 
theological  doctrines  from  the  theory  of  evo- 
lution in  its  narrower  scope.  Helpful  anal- 
ogies and  suggestive  points  of  view  we  shall 
have,  but  scarcely  more.  But  the  legitimate 
application  of  evolution  in  its  entirety  is  a 
thing  to  be  welcomed,  not  feared.  All 
God's  ways  are  harmonious. 

IV.   CONCLUSION  UPON  MIRACLES  AND   EVOLUTION 

In  concluding  the  discussion  of  miracles 
and  of  evolution,  it  may  be  well,  even  more 
definitely  than  has  yet  been  done,  to  bring 
the  view  here  defended  face  to  face  with 
another  view  that  claims  to  be  the  only  true 
scientific  view,  and  toward  which,  it  cannot 
be  denied,  there  is  in  certain  circles  a  strong 
trend.  Probably  no  one  has  stated  this  view 
more  clearly  or  more  strongly  than  Pflei- 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  Q7 

derer.  "The  fundamental  error,"  he  says, 
"of  the  theologians  of  the  new  faith  of 
the  present  day  consists  in  this,  that  they 
think  one  can  without  hesitation  acknowl- 
edge the  validity  of  the  same  scientific 
method  in  the  domain  of  nature  which  they 
refuse  to  apply  to  that  of  history.  This  is  a 
cardinal  logical  contradiction,  out  of  which 
naturally  proceed  all  the  contradictions  and 
inconsequences  previously  presented  in  de- 
tail. There  is  only  the  one  choice :  Either 
the  evolutionary  mode  of  thought  is  right,  in 
which  case  it  must  be  uniform  in  all  fields 
of  investigation,  in  history,  then,  as  well  as 
in  nature ;  or  it  is  wrong,  in  which  case  the 
views  of  nature  acquired  by  means  of  it  are 
not  justified,  and  we  have  no  right  to  prefer 
them  to  the  traditions  of  faith.  On  which 
side  of  this  dilemma  the  theologian  ought 
to  range  himself  cannot,  for  the  theologian 
who  claims  a  scientific  character  for  the- 
ology (and  this  all  those  of  the  new  faith 
do) ,  be  a  single  moment  doubtful. 

"What  consequences  now  will  follow  the 
application  of  the  doctrine  of  evolution  to 
the  theological  consideration  of  history? 
First  of  all,  it  is  evident  that  it  excludes 
miracles  in  every  sense  of  the  word  —  not 


Q8  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

merely  the  nature-miracle  (this  the  men  of 
the  new  faith  drop  without  pain) ,  but  also 
just  as  much  the  spirit-miracle,  that  is,  the 
intervention  of  a  foreign  power  in  the  hu- 
man soul,  whereby  conditions  are  produced 
in  it  which  do  not  result  from  the  causal 
connection  with  antecedent  conditions.  If 
it  is  the  methodic  cardinal  proposition  of 
the  science  of  to-day  that  we  have  to  explain 
every  condition  as  the  causally  determined 
development  out  of  a  preceding  one,  this 
excludes  on  principle  the  appearance  of  any 
condition,  event,  action  or  personality  which 
is  not  explicable  out  of  the  factors  of  the 
preceding  conditions  and  according  to  the 
laws  of  genesis  in  general." 

Yet  Pfleiderer  also  says:  "That  the  divine 
principle  which  enlightens  every  man  has 
revealed  itself  in  an  extraordinary  manner  in 
individual  men  by  reason  of  the  especial 
force  and  purity  of  their  consciousness  of 
God,  and  that  among  these  prophets  of  the 
rational  God-consciousness  Jesus  takes  the 
highest  rank,  so  that  one  may  see  in  him 
the  most  powerful  human  organ  of  that  prin- 
ciple—  these  are  declarations  that  may  be 
made  without  contradicting  the  strictly  sci- 
entific view  of  history.  For  the  distinguish- 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  99 

ing  between  the  divine  principle  and  the 
human  person,  which  is  the  kernel  of  the 
church's  doctrine  of  the  God-man,  leaves 
open  the  possibility  of  a  purely  historical 
apprehension  of  the  human  person  of  Jesus 
as  a  specially  conditioned  causal  link  in  the 
connection  of  the  development  of  the  human 
mind.  The  divine  in  Jesus  does  not  denote 
a  violent  rupture  of  the  course  of  human 
history  with  the  exclusion  of  all  causal  con- 
nection and  all  human  personality,  but  it  lies 
at  the  basis  of  all  this  history  from  begin- 
ning to  end;  it  dwells  in  it  as  the  divine 
Logos,  as  the  rational  aptitude  of  human 
nature,  as  impulse  to  the  true  and  good,  as 
God-consciousness." l 

Now,  one  need  not  question  the  religious 
sincerity  of  these  latter  utterances;  and  cer- 
tainly no  one  who  has  had  the  privilege  of 
hearing  Pfleiderer  in  his  own  lecture-room, 
especially  in  his  practical  counsels  to  theo- 
logical students,  will  question  the  genuine- 
ness and  significance  of  his  religious  faith. 
Nevertheless,  it  may  well  be  doubted  if  the 
view  Pfleiderer  here  presents  is  either  in 
itself  justified,  or  is  at  all  consistent  with 

Pfleiderer,  Evolution  and  Theology  and  Other  Essays,  pp.  8,  9; 
17,  18. 


IOO  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

his  own  religious  affirmations  here  and  else- 
where. 

That  we  are  not  to  forget,  if  we  believe 
in  God  in  any  sense,  that  no  finite  being  can 
be  conceived  as  metaphysically  independent 
of  God;  that  God  is  expressed  of  course  in 
the  actual  constitution  and  capabilities  of 
human  beings;  and,  finally,  that  even  a  di- 
vine education  of  men  could  not  ignore  the 
stage  of  development  reached  by  them,  and 
must  therefore  be  gradual  and  adapted,  and 
so  allow  in  this  sense  no  absolute  break  — 
all  these  propositions  may  be  not  only  ad- 
mitted but  asserted  without  dispute. 

But  there  is  a  question  in  dispute  which, 
in  the  judgment  of  the  writer,  is  so  impor- 
tant as  to  involve  the  question  of  the  rational 
possibility  of  anything  that  can  justly  be  called 
religion,  unless,  indeed,  one  is  willing  to  dig- 
nify Positivism  with  that  name.  That  ques- 
tion is :  Does  anything  occur  in  nature  or  in 
history  which  cannot  be  fully  accounted  for 
as  due  to  the  reciprocal  action  of  finite  things 
or  persons  ?  Is  God  a  mere  indifferent  stage 
for  finite  activities  ?  or  is  he  in  any  sense 
transcendent?  and,  if  so,  is  that  transcendent 
God  ever  for  us  a  reality?  Especially  does 
God  ever  act  in  history  in  any  other  way 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  101 

than  is  completely  included  in  activities 
which  are  to  be  referred  in  the  strictest 
sense  to  men,  and  to  them  as  necessarily 
determined  by  the  preceding  stage?  Pflei- 
derer's  view  seems  really  to  deny  all  tran- 
scendence in  God,  and  to  admit  even  his 
immanence  only  as  absolutely  restricted  to 
what  is  contained  in  the  purely  human.  Logi- 
cally he  has  no  room  even  for  the  slightest 
mental  influence  of  God,  considered  as  other 
than  the  man  himself.  I  bring  together  in 
rapid  summary  the  considerations  which,  in 
the  light  of  the  preceding  discussion,  seem 
to  me  to  preclude,  in  spite  of  its  scientific 
pretensions,  such  a  view  as  this  of  Pflei- 
derer's. 

i.  In  the  first  place,  the  temptation  of 
any  one  holding  strongly  to  a  theory  is  to 
ignore  the  facts  for  which  it  cannot  account. 
But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  it  is  the 
first  business  of  science  to  take  account  of 
all  the  facts ;  it  cannot  a  priori  rule  out  any 
fact  at  the  demand  of  any  hypothesis.  The 
attempted  application  of  this  mechanical  the- 
ory in  history,  though  Pfleiderer  says  it  is  wa 
brilliant  success,"  whether  in  Pfleiderer's  own 
hands  or  in  those  of  others,  leaves  me  with 
the  strong  impression  that  there  is  much  that 


102  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  theory  is  simply  forced  to  ignore.  There 
must  be  frequent  recurrence  to  such  helps 
as  "an  especially  powerful  and  happy  religious 
moral  nature,"  "a  specially  conditioned  causal 
link,"  etc. —  for  which  no  real  causal  account, 
in  Pfleiderer's  sense,  can  be  given  —  in  order 
to  make  the  theory  work  at  all.  As  unpreju- 
diced scientific  observers,  we  ought  not  to  de- 
ceive ourselves  with  phrases  like  these,  which 
mean  that  we  simply  are  not  able  to  trace  a 
causal  connection.  In  fact,  we  are  quite  un- 
able, and  have  no  rational  hope  of  ever  being 
able,  to  trace  any  such  precise  connections 
in  even  a  modified  sense  where  great  person- 
alities are  involved.  The  most  valuable  his- 
tory is  in  this  sense  not  strictly  scientific. 

This  point  is  put  clearly  by  Gardner.1 
"Every  historian  worthy  of  the  name  now 
writes  more  or  less  completely  under  the 
dominion  of  the  idea  of  evolution.  But 
many  writers  fail  to  see  the  limits  of  evolu- 
tion as  applied  to  history,  and  the  natural 
prejudices  of  the  evolutionary  method,  against 
which  one  has  to  guard  one's  self.  The  more 
a  historian  is  possessed  by  the  genius  of  evolu- 
tion, the  more  likely  he  is  to  disregard  that  in 
history  which  is  most  human  and  most  divine." 

1  Exploratio  Evangelica,  pp.  135-37. 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  IO3 

"It  is  not  difficult  to  prove  that  advanced  his- 
torians sometimes  mistake  the  prejudices  of 
their  method  for  objective  tendencies  of 
human  progress."  "So  history  must  frankly 
accept  the  doctrine  of  development  and  yet 
keep  itself  from  inanity  and  death  by  insisting 
on  the  presence  in  history,  through  all  devel- 
opments and  amid  all  clashes  of  force,  of  will, 
character,  and  divine  inspiration." 

2.  In  the  second  place,  as  we  have  seen, 
science,  according  to  its  own  chosen  con- 
ception, is  limited  by  experience ;  it  cannot 
prophesy  independently  of  experience.  Ac- 
curately interpreted,  this  seems  to  require 
the  assertion  that  strictly  all  we  really  see  in 
nature,  in  the  case  of  reciprocally  acting 
beings,  is  concomitance  and  co-variation.1 
We  do  not  discern  really  causal  connections, 
but  only  occasions ;  that  is,  in  even  the  most 
favorable  case,  even  in  inorganic  nature  in  a 
case  in  which  we  count  our  explanation  per- 
fect and  our  scientific  task  completed,  we 
are  obliged  to  admit  an  unknown  Infinite,  as 
alone  giving  real  causal  connection.  At  least 
in  this  same  sense,  we  must  admit  the  activity 

1  Cf.  Paulsen,  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  pp .  2 1 1  ff .  The  same  view 
is  taken  on  strictly  scientific  grounds  by  Prof.  N.  S.  Shaler.  the  geologist, 
in  his  The  Individual:  A  Study  of  Life  and  Death ,  pp.  297  ff. 


IO4  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

of  the  Infinite  in  history.  This  means  that, 
in  scientific  strictness,  not  only  are  we  not 
able  to  trace  causal  connections  at  certain 
special  critical  points,  but  in  no  case  can  we 
do  so.  The  closest  scrutiny  of  the  preceding 
finite  stage  simply  refuses  to  yield  a  sufficient 
cause.  In  nature,  the  connection  seems  to  us 
necessary  only  because  habitual  connections 
which  we  have  simply  found  to  hold  as  mat- 
ters of  fact  are  assumed  to  be  necessities 
of  thought.1  So  far,  then,  at  least,  we  are 
not  accepting  in  nature,  as  Pfleiderer  claims, 
a  principle  which  is  denied  in  history.  The 
truth  is,  that  Pfleiderer's  statement  goes  be- 
yond what  can  be  admitted  as  fact  even  in 
nature.2  Certainly  those  who,  like  Pfleiderer, 
admit  that  the  finite  cannot  be  thought  to  be 
independent  as  to  its  being,  ought  to  find  it 
only  rational  to  admit  that  the  finite  is  not  less 
dependent  as  to  its  action;  that,  as  in  the  former 
case  for  any  ultimate  explanation  we  require 
continual  reference  to  that  which  is  more  than 
finite,  so  also  in  all  the  activities  of  the  finite 
more  than  the  finite  must  be  presupposed. 

3.  Unless  we  mean  entirely  to  deny  the 
reality  of  personality  and  character  in  man, 
we  are  bound  to  admit  that  there  must  be 

I  Cf.  Lotze,  op.  cit.,  I,  pp.  384-85.    *  Cf.  above,  pp.  54,  55  ;  84-86. 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  105 

some  difference  between  God's  immanence 
in  nature  and  his  immanence  in  man.1  For 
if  the  personality  and  character  of  men  are 
accounted  real,  a  view  of  the  immanence  of 
God  which  might  be  wholly  satisfactory  as 
applied  to  external  nature  might  be  wholly 
unsatisfactory  as  applied  to  men.  We  should 
be  obliged  to  ask  with  Lotze :  "Where  in 
this  being  is  the  cause  of  the  development 
of  the  moral  world,  where  that  whence  pro- 
ceeds the  distinction  of  good  and  evil?  If 
we  will  not  —  relapsing  into  the  old  antag- 
onism—  either  externally  ground  the  moral 
world  on  a  nature  originally  given,  or  as- 
sume that  the  two  separate  roots  coexist 
without  any  bond  of  union  in  a  Supreme 
Being  that  we  call  One,  no  other  choice  re- 
mains than  either  to  include  the  Good  in  the 
cycle  of  natural  phenomena,  or  Nature  in  the 
accomplishment  of  Good.  I  cannot  for  a 
moment  doubt  that  the  latter  alternative  is 
alone  permissible :  all  being,  all  that  we  call 
mode  and  form,  thing  and  event,  the  whole 
sum  of  Nature,  can  be  nothing  else  than  the 
condition  for  the  realization  of  Good,  can 
be  as  it  is  only  because  thus  in  it  the  infinite 

1  Cf.  A.  W.  Jackson,  James  Martineau,  A  Biography  and  Study t 
pp.  182  ff. ;  415  ff. 


106  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

worth  of  the  Good  manifested  itself." x  That 
is,  we  must  take  account  not  only  of  the 
world  of  nature  but  of  the  world  of  human 
nature ;  and  the  conception  of  law,  that  is, 
of  the  consistency  of  the  purpose  of  the  In- 
finite, must  be  broad  enough  to  include 
under  it  not  only  nature  but  all  aspects  of 
human  nature,  especially  its  ethical  interests. 
The  theory  which  Pfleiderer  defends,  strictly 
interpreted  as  he  would  interpret  it,  admits 
no  such  difference  between  God's  imma- 
nence in  nature  and  his  immanence  in  man. 
But  is  not  the  very  significance  of  history 
the  revelation  of  personality  and  of  charac- 
ter, not  the  mere  unfolding  of  a  predestined 
order  ?  For  whom,  it  must  be  asked,  is  this 
unfolding,  if  personality  and  character  are  de- 
nied ?  Any  theory  may  well  be  questioned 
that  so  removes  the  significance  from  history. 
4.  If  it  is  admitted  that  other  persons  are 
a  significant  and  effective  part  of  our  envi- 
ronment, and  if  God  is  recognized  as  in  any 
sense  a  real  personality,  it  would  seem  im- 
possible to  deny  that,  in  the  case  of  the  indi- 
vidual man,  God  may  be  at  least  as  significant 
and  effective  a  part  of  his  environment  as 
another  man.2  No  daubt  it  is  not  intended 

1Op.  cit.,  I,  p.  396.        *Cf.  Pfleiderer.     See  above,  p.  71. 


THE    SPECIAL    BEARING    OF    EVOLUTION  IO7 

that  we  should  be  able  in  any  given  case 
precisely  to  analyze  out  the  human  and  the 
divine.  Since  character  —  our  own  choosing 
—  is  the  aim,  God's  relation  to  us  here  must 
not  be  obtrusive.  There  is  a  definite  moral 
reason  for  the  obscurity  which  here  prevails. 
And  yet,  in  our  ultimate  thinking  upon 
things,  and  in  any  long  retrospect  either  of 
our  own  life  or  of  history,  we  may  find  quite 
sufficient  reason  for  belief  in  a  real  historical 
contact  of  God  with  men.  And  we  ought 
not  to  forget,  further,  that  in  any  broad  view 
pf  evolution  it  would  seem  as  rational  to 
admit  God  in  a  developing  environment  as 
in  the  developing  germ.1 

5.  A  strict  mechanical  theory,  moreover, 
would  not  leave  even  so  much  as  Pfleiderer 
[wishes  to  leave  of  religion.  For  if  in  a  given 
historical  connection  there  appears  only  what 
is  necessarily  involved  in  what  the  man  him- 
self is,  then  there  is  no  divine  element  at  all, 
except  such  as  is  implied  in  God's  expression 
of  himself  in  the  constitution  of  the  man,  and 
never  is.  There  is,  therefore,  no  "other"  with 
whom  even  in  the  most  immanent  way  there 
can  be  communion.  That  is,  if  God  appears 
only  in  what  men  are  in  their  own  natures, 

lCf.  above,  pp.  81  and  93. 


108  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

which  would  be  in  a  strictly  immanent  way,  he 
never  appears  as  "another"  than  themselves, 
and  all  talk  of  religion  as  a  communion  with 
another — with  God  —  is  impossible.  Unless 
then  one  is  prepared  to  deny  transcendence  in 
any  sense  of  God,  and  so  end  in  the  blankest 
and  most  irreligious  and  characterless  pan- 
theism— making  God  responsible  equally  and 
indifferently  for  everything  in  the  world — it 
would  seem  difficult  to  deny  some  element  of 
transcendence  even  in  what  we  call  the  immanent 
action  of  God  in  the  soul.  There  must  be  "an- 
other," in  order  to  have  a  religion.  It  may  be 
doubted  whether  this  has  always  been  recog- 
nized by  the  newer  theologians  in  their  use  of 
the  word  immanence.  In  truth,  are  we  not 
all,  of  all  schools,  really  tacitly  assuming — and 
must  we  not — in  our  ideas  of  immanence,  that 
God  underlies  all  beings  and  events  every- 
where as  more  than  they  all,  and  only  as  such 
gives  them  their  places  in  what  we  call  the 
causal  connection ;  and  thus  are  implying  in 
the  so-called  immanence  itself  a  real  and 
necessary  transcendence?  If  such  transcend- 
ence is  denied,  the  only  religion  logically  left 
is  Positivism.  Are  the  deniers  of  all  trans- 
cendence ready  to  accept  such  an  outcome? 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   INFLUENCE   OF   THE  HISTORICAL  AND   LITERARY 
CRITICISM   OF  THE  BIBLE 

I.    AS    CONCERNS   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT 

OF  the  mainly  intellectual  influences  on 
theology,  the  most  important  must  be  that 
of  historical  criticism,  for  Christianity  is,  and 
claims  to  be,  preeminently  a  historical  re- 
ligion. The  general  outcome  of  historical 
and  literary  criticism  so  far  as  it  concerns 
the  New  Testament  is  certainly  thought  to 
be  reassuring, —  to  have  given  us  stronger 
and  better  reasons  for  our  faith  in  Christ. 
Very  few,  probably,  would  question  that 
Christianity  as  a  historical  religion  is  in  a 
far  more  defensible  position  now  than  sixty- 
five  years  ago  It  would  not  be  at  all  true 
to  say  that  traditional  views  concerning  the 
New  Testament  have  not  changed  within 
this  period;  they  have  changed, —  greatly 
and  on  many  points.  Doubtless,  too,  the 
battle  in  the  New  Testament  field  is  not 
done,  as  the  determined  efforts  still  making 

(109) 


HO  RECONSTRUCTION    IN  THEOLOGY 

in  many  quarters  to  eliminate  the  miracu- 
lous plainly  show;  with  this  question  we  have 
already  dealt.  But,  taking  full  account  of  all 
questions  that  in  any  fairness  may  be  con- 
sidered still  open,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
the  result  of  the  constant  discussion  since 
Strauss'  Life  of  Jesus,  in  1835,  has  been  to 
make  clearer  than  ever  the  solid  historical 
basis  of  Christianity,  and  the  incomparable 
position  of  Christ  as  the  supreme  person  of 
history.  And  with  the  meaning  of  this  latter 
fact  for  theology  we  shall  have  later  to  deal. 
The  question  that  is  just  now  of  seeming 
greater  concern  to  the  Church  is  the  appli- 
cation of  essentially  the  same  historical  and 
literary  criticism  to  the  books  of  the  Old 
Testament.  And,  if  it  is  the  business  of  a 
theologian  to  recognize  especially  the  diffi- 
culties of  his  own  times,  the  theologian  of 
to-day  cannot  avoid  facing  with  peculiar  care 
the  problem  of  the  so-called  higher  criticism 
of  the  Old  Testament.  This  is  the  more 
necessary,  since  any  considerable  change  in 
the  view  of  the  Bible,  such  as  seems  in- 
volved in  the  higher  criticism,  must  make  a 
most  important  and  delicate  transition  for 
the  Protestant  Church,  because  of  the  place 
it  has  always  given  to  the  Bible.  Indeed, 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  III 

this  question  means  so  much  to  the  Church 
to-day  that  it  seems  impossible  to  discuss  it 
adequately  without  giving  it  what  may  easily 
seem  disproportionate  attention. 

II.    DEFINITION   OF   THE    HIGHER   CRITICISM 

It  is  unfortunate  that  in  the  early  stages 
of  higher  criticism  in  America,  for  particu- 
lar reasons,  it  came  to  be  associated,  in  the 
minds  of  many,  with  a  rather  bitter  and  arro- 
gant spirit ;  and  it  is  even  more  unfortunate 
that,  for  many  more,  for  other  special  rea- 
sons, it  was  identified  with  the  most  extreme 
results  of  an  a  priori  anti-supernaturalistic 
school.  It  ought  to  be  clear  to  every  one  by 
this  time,  however,  that  higher  criticism  is 
a  method,  not  results;  and  that,  like  the  his- 
torical or  scientific  method  anywhere,  it  will 
give  sound  results  only  as  the  investigator  is 
competently  furnished  for  his  particular  in- 
quiry, is  modest  in  face  of  the  facts,  is  free 
from  prejudice,  and  is  of  genuine  soundness 
of  judgment.  It  is  manifestly  as  unfair  and 
unwise  to  discard  all  higher  criticism  as  such, 
because  its  methods  have  been  by  many 
abused,  as  it  would  be  to  set  aside  historical 
and  literary  criticism  as  a  whole  —  of  which 


112  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  higher  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament  is 
only  an  example  —  for  the  same  reason.  One 
cannot  wonder  that  there  has  been  some  im- 
patience on  the  part  of  scholars  with  the  per- 
sistent misunderstanding  of  this  fundamental 
distinction  recognized  everywhere  else,  and 
with  the  consequent  berating  of  the  whole 
method  because  the  results  reached  by  some 
in  the  use  of  the  method  have  not  been 
justified. 

Positively,  higher  criticism  may  be  defined 
as  a  careful  historical  and  literary  study  of 
a  book  to  determine  its  unity,  age,  author- 
ship, literary  form,  and  reliability.  In  the 
determination  of  these  problems,  as  Profes- 
sor Briggs  has  pointed  out,1  account  is  taken 
of  the  historical  references  contained  in  the 
book,  of  the  style  of  the  book,  of  the  opin- 
ions expressed  in  it,  of  the  citations  made  in 
it,  and  of  the  testimony  (or  lack  of  testi- 
mony) to  this  book  found  in  other  books  of 
acknowledged  authority,  where  some  refer- 
ence might  be  expected.  The  higher  criti- 
cism of  a  book  is  thus,  in  the  main,  simply 
a  painstaking  study  of  the  book  itself,  to  get 
at  the  facts  about  it.  The  inquiry  in  its  en- 
tirety is  evidently  wholly  legitimate  and  ought 

1  The  Study  of  Holy  Scripture,  p.  95  ff. 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  1 13 

to  be  of  value  when  applied  to  the  books  of 
the  Bible.  Any  one  who  undertakes  such  an 
inquiry,  'whatever  his  results,  whether  such  as 
to  deny  or  such  as  to  confirm  traditional 
opinion,  is  a  higher  critic.  In  its  purity, 
then,  it  is  to  be  noted,  the  higher  criticism 
of  the  Old  Testament  is  simply  an  honest 
inductive  study  of  the  facts  about  the  his- 
torical revelation  of  God  to  determine,  just 
as  in  a  truly  scientific  study  of  nature,  how 
God  actually  did  proceed,  not  how  he  must 
have  proceeded.  It  stands  squarely  opposed 
to  the  a  priori  attitude  on  either  side  — 
both  to  the  a  priori  abstract  supernaturalism 
which  assumes  that  a  record  of  the  divine 
revelation  must  be  without  touch  of  human 
error,  and  to  the  a  priori  abstract  anti-super- 
naturalism  which  assumes  that  the  super- 
natural is  impossible.  The  business  of  the 
higher  criticism  is  not  with  a  priori  theo- 
ries of  any  kind,  but  with  an  inductive  study 
of  the  facts.  To  such  an  inductive  study, 
however  thorough,  no  reasonable  objection 
can  be  made.  And,  so  far  as  the  results 
reached  by  the  critic  are  affected  by  a  priori 
assumption,  they  are  not  properly  critical  re- 
sults at  all,  and  therefore  not  fairly  charge- 
able to  higher  criticism  as  such.  The  defense 

H 


114  RECONSTRUCTION     IN    THEOLOGY 

of  higher  criticism  is  not  the  defense  of  such 
results.  This  chapter,  certainly,  is  not  in- 
tended as  a  defense  of  any  anti-supernatural- 
istic  criticism. 


III.   THE   INEVITABLENESS  OF  THE  HISTORICAL  AND 
LITERARY  CRITICISM  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

It  is  difficult  to  understand  how  any  one 
who  knows  at  all  what  modern  scholarship 
means  can  question  the  legitimacy  and  final 
desirability  of  the  higher  criticism  of  the 
Old  Testament  as  now  defined.  And,  con- 
servatives and  radicals  alike,  we  ought  all 
at  least  squarely  to  face  the  inevitableness  for 
our  time  of  just  such  a  study  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Nothing  can  prevent  men  rais- 
ing these  questions  concerning  the  Old 
Testament,  and  they  must  be  answered,  as 
best  they  may  be,  in  view  of  all  available 
evidence.  The  only  wise  policy  for  the 
Christian  Church  is  the  frankest  and  fullest 
facing  of  the  facts,  without  timidity  and 
without  prejudice. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  by  the  older 
generation  that  the  younger  generation,  as 
they  study  the  Old  Testament,  are  conscious 
of  difficulties  that  were  very  little  felt  even 


THEOLOGY   AND    HIGHER   CRITICISM  IIS 

thirty  years  ago.  Three  subjects  now  come 
into  the  early  education  of  a  child  which 
formerly  had  little  or  no  place  —  natural 
science,  history,  and  comparative  literature  ; 
and  each  one  of  these  studies  has  its  own 
atmosphere  and  raises  its  own  difficulties  in 
Old  Testament  study;  so  that,  far  more 
commonly  than  is  generally  supposed,  even 
children  are  raising  essentially  critical  ques- 
tions. The  scientific  and  historical  and 
literary  spirit  is  more  or  less  tangibly  felt 
by  them,  and  questions  thus  arise  involun- 
tarily for  the  younger  generation  that  were 
not  at  all  felt  by  the  older.  More  often 
than  parents  know,  the  child  is  asking:  Are 
there  any  such  things  as  miracles?  Is  this 
account  in  Genesis  like  what  I  learned  in 
physical  geography?  Are  these  narratives 
real  history?  are  not  these  stories  essentially 
like  the  Greek  ones  in  my  reader? 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  few  men 
who  really  feel  the  spirit  of  their  generation 
can  make  a  careful  comparative  study  of 
the  Old  Testament  books  as  wholes,  and 
not  be  driven  to  raise  questions  that  can  be 
answered  only  by  criticism.  The  great  body 
of  the  Church  are  able  to  shut  their  eyes  to 
these  difficulties,  simply  because  they  have 


Il6  RECONSTRUCTION     IN     THEOLOGY 

always  read  their  Bible  so  in  bits  that  they 
really  do  not  know  the  phenomena  which  it 
contains.  For  the  real  student  of  the  Bible, 
criticism  is  a  help,  not  a  hindrance,  to  his 
faith. 

Let  no  one  imagine,  then,  that  these  ques- 
tions of  the  higher  criticism  can  be  evaded. 
For  the  sake  of  the  younger  generation, 
and  especially  for  the  best  trained  portion 
of  it,  it  must  be  made  unmistakably  clear 
that  the  Bible  itself  warrants  no  view  which 
ignores  the  human  and  progressive  element 
in  the  Bible,  or  looks  on  all  its  parts  as  of 
equal  divinity  and  value.  Dr.  George  Adam 
Smith  probably  does  not  overstate  the  truth 
when  he  says  that  if  one  person  is  likely 
to  suffer  shipwreck  through  the  employment 
of  the  higher  criticism,  the  faith  of  ten  will 
break  down — is  breaking  down — for  lack  of 
the  very  help  it  would  bring. 

The  historical  and  literary  criticism  of  the 
Old  Testament,  in  fact,  is  inevitable  simply 
because  of  a  wider  knowledge,  which  it 
would  be  the  height  of  folly  for  the  Church 
to  ignore.  Principal  Fairbairn's  statement 
on  this  point  is  comprehensive  and  convinc- 
ing, and  may  well  suffice.  "If  scientific 
scholarship  be  legitimate,  the  higher  criticism 


THEOLOGY    AND     HIGHER    CRITICISM  117 

cannot  be  forbidden — the  two  have  simply 
moved  part  passu.  Hebrew  language  became 
another  thing  in  the  hands  of  Gesenius 
from  what  it  had  been  in  the  hands  of 
Parkhurst;  the  genius  of  Ewald  made  it  a 
still  more  living  and  mobile  and  significant 
thing.  The  discoveries  in  Egypt  and  Meso- 
potamia have  made  forgotten  empires  and 
lost  literatures  rise  out  of  their  graves  to 
elucidate  Hebrew  history  and  literature.  A 
more  intimate  knowledge  of  Oriental  man 
and  nature,  due  to  personal  acquaintance 
with  them,  has  qualified  scholars  the  better 
to  read  and  understand  the  Semitic  mind. 
A  more  accurate  knowledge  of  ancient  ver- 
sions, combined  with  a  more  scientific 
archaeology,  and  a  clearer  insight  into  the 
intellectual  tendencies  and  religious  methods 
of  the  old  world,  especially  in  their  relation 
to  literary  activity  and  composition,  has  en- 
abled the  student  to  apply  new  and  more 
certain  canons  to  all  that  concerns  the  for- 
mation of  books  and  texts.  The  growth  of 
skilled  interpretation,  exercised  and  illus- 
trated in  many  fields,  has  accustomed  men  to 
the  study  of  literature  and  history  together, 
showing  how  the  literature  lived  through 
the  people,  and  the  people  were  affected 


Il8  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

by  the  literature ;  and  so  has  trained  men 
to  read  with  larger  eyes  the  books  and 
peoples  of  the  past.  With  so  many  new  ele- 
ments entering  into  sacred  scholarship,  it  is 
impossible  that  traditional  views  and  tradi- 
tional canons  should  remain  unaffected.  If 
ever  anything  was  inevitable  through  the 
progress  of  science,  it  was  the  birth  of  the 
higher  criticism."1 

Must  not  a  large  Christian  faith  see  in 
this  wide  movement  of  scholarship  a  gen- 
uine providential  leading,  and  count  the 
constructive  higher  criticism  which  has 
accompanied  it  not  only  inevitable,  but 
desirable  ? 

IV.    DANGERS    IN   THE   TRANSITION  TO   THE    NEW 
VIEW   OF   THE   BIBLE 

There  are,  no  doubt,  dangers  for  the 
Church,  as  in  every  transition,  in  passing 
over  from  the  older  view  of  the  Bible  to 
that  involved  in  the  critical  position.  There 
is  danger,  in  the  first  place,  of  over-empha- 
sis on  the  critical  and  intellectual.  So  far 
as  the  spiritual  life  is  concerned,  all  these 
critical  processes  are  only  means  to  higher 

1Op.  cit.,  p.  503. 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  IIQ 

ends.  The  results  of  criticism  may  be  of 
great  value  to  the  spiritual  life ;  the  pro- 
cesses themselves  have  in  general  no  place 
in  directly  religious  teaching.  There  is 
danger,  too,  of  extravagant  reaction  from 
traditional  views,  in  a  dogmatic  assurance  as 
to  details  of  criticism  that  cannot  be  insisted 
upon,  and  especially,  through  confusing  crit- 
ical with  radical  positions,  in  the  direction 
of  a  denial  of  the  supernatural  altogether. 
As  in  every  period  of  transition,  too,  there 
is  the  danger  of  the  relaxing  of  older  ideas 
and  obligations  while  the  newer  are  not  yet 
firmly  grasped.  This  only  emphasizes  the 
need  of  a  constant  constructive  criticism, 
that  shall  interpret  the  critical  results  for 
the  spiritual  life,  always  replacing  the  old 
with  the  better  new,  putting  fuller  richer 
meaning  into  old  formulas.  We  are  not  to 
destroy  but  to  fulfil.  Perhaps  no  better 
example  of  such  fearless  but  genuinely  con- 
structive criticism  can  be  given  than  Pro- 
fessor George  Adam  Smith's  treatment  of 
the  Minor  Prophets  in  his  The  Book  of  the 
Twelve  Prophets. 

In  this  entire  transition,  there  is  great 
need  of  patience  and  charity  for  a  consider- 
able time.  It  is  not  strange  that,  with  the 


120  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

widely  different  points  of  view  of  those  who 
have  undertaken  higher  critical  investiga- 
tions and  with  the  contradictory  statements 
about  higher  criticism,  many  should  be  hon- 
estly confused  concerning  the  real  issue,  and 
feel  that  all  higher  criticism  is  an  attack  on 
the  Bible  itself.  For  the  great  body  of  the 
Church,  probably,  a  view  of  inspiration  has 
gone  unchallenged,  which  the  Bible  no- 
where claims  for  itself,  and  which  simply 
cannot  consist  with  the  known  facts  about 
the  Bible.  Persons  cherishing  such  a  view 
will  be  likely  to  feel  at  first  that,  in  losing 
their  unauthorized  theory  of  the  Bible,  they 
are  losing  the  Bible  itself.  We  are  all  likely 
somewhere  to  identify  things  which  are  very 
precious  to  us  with  their  accidental  accom- 
paniments. In  the  meantime,  Christian  men 
must  have  faith  in  one  another's  Christian 
motives  and  character,  and  cultivate  an  hon- 
est tolerance.  We  are  all  seeking  the  same 
ultimate  goal.  And  let  us  not  judge  by 
phrases  merely,  whether  conservative  or  rad- 
ical. What  we  seek  is  neither  the  old  as  old 
nor  the  new  as  new,  but  God's  own  truth, 
old  or  new. 

No   doubt,   even   for   the   ordinary   Chris- 
tian, who  turns  to  the  Bible  simply  for  guid- 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  121 

ance  and  inspiration,  it  is  true, —  to  quote 
the  wise  words  of  another  —  that  w  the  view 
here  presented  will  necessitate  more  trouble 
and  more  care  in  the  study  of  the  Bible. 
We  can  no  longer  take  each  verse  as  in  it- 
self a  complete  and  definite  proof-text  on 
the  matter  it  refers  to.  We  must  consider 
the  context,  and  the  time  in  which  the 
writer  lived,  and  the  circumstances  under 
which  he  wrote.  We  must  balance  one 
part  of  Scripture  with  another.  We  must 
recognize  that  the  Old  Testament  teaching 
is  in  parts  lower  than  that  of  the  New.  We 
must  build  our  beliefs  less  on  isolated 
phrases  or  texts,  and  more  on  the  general 
spirit  of  the  Bible.  And  for  all  this  there 
will  be  needed  more  thoughtfulness,  more 
suspension  of  judgment,  more  modesty,  more 
study,  more  prayer."1  But  this  only  makes 
almost  impossible  the  lazy  and  unspiritual 
use  of  the  Bible,  and  in  the  end  must  prove 
a  gain  rather  than  a  loss.  It  means  a  more 
genuinely  spiritual  method  in  spiritual  things; 
for,  as  Drummond  says,  w truth  never  becomes 
truth  until  it  has  been  earned." 

1  J.  P.  Smyth,  How  God  Inspired  the  Bible,  p.  208.  This  book 
is  one  of  the  best  popular  presentations  of  its  subject  known  to  the 
writer. 


122  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

V.   GENERAL  RESULTS   OF  THE   CRITICAL  STUDY  OF 
THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

It  is  evident  that  we  cannot  dogmatize  as 
to  the  minute  details  of  the  literary  analysis 
of  the  Old  Testament, —  that  there  is  room 
for  difference  of  opinion  here  as  in  the  de- 
tails of  any  science.  In  all  probability,  the 
tendency  to  extreme  and  minute  analysis 
has  well-nigh  reached  its  climax ;  and  many 
individual  theories  in  reference  to  brief  pas- 
sages might  fall  to  the  ground  without  dis- 
turbing the  larger  results  of  criticism  in 
which  there  is  general  agreement. 

No  doubt,  too,  it  is  possible  that  some 
more  general  conclusions,  now  seeming  very 
probable,  may  with  more  light  be  changed ; 
the  problem  is  often  very  complex.  It 
seems  probable  to  the  writer  that  in  certain 
cases  more  weight  than  has  been  must  be 
given,  for  example,  to  the  evidence  of  liter- 
ary form  and  to  the  considerable  degree  of 
unity  the  books  have  in  their  present  form ; 
as  some  of  Professor  Moulton's  work  in  the 
Modern  ?Rjader*s  'Bible  naturally  suggests. 

Archaeological  research,  too,  may  possi- 
bly still  alter  some  conclusions.  Though  it 
is  to  be  noted  that  Driver — certainly  not 


THEOLOGY    AND     HIGHER    CRITICISM  123 

given  to  rash  statements  —  feels  warranted  in 
saying  in  the  preface  to  the  last  edition  of 
his  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  the  Old 
Testament:  "The  attempt  to  refute  the  con- 
clusions of  criticism  by  means  of  archaeol- 
ogy has  signally  failed.  The  archaeological 
discoveries  of  recent  years  have  indeed  been 
of  singular  interest  and  value:  they  have 
thrown  a  flood  of  light,  sometimes  as  sur- 
prising as  it  was  unexpected,  upon  many  a 
previously  dark  and  unknown  region  of  anti- 
quity. But,  in  spite  of  the  ingenious  hypoth- 
eses which  have  been  framed  to  prove  the 
contrary,  they  have  revealed  nothing  which 
is  in  conflict  with  the  generally  accepted  con- 
clusions of  critics."1 

Changes  in  critical  conclusions  are  more 
likely  to  come,  if  at  all,  from  the  discernment 
of  new  and  simpler  hypotheses  to  account  for 
the  facts  found,  where  the  hypothesis  now 
accepted  is  perhaps  unnecessarily  complex. 
Such  changes  have  already  taken  place  in 
the  case  of  some  of  the  briefer  Old  Testa- 
ment books. 

Most  important  of  all,  as  has  been  al- 
ready indicated,  a  clear  line  must  be  drawn 
between  the  results  of  a  truly  scientific 

1  Introduction,  p.  xviii. 


124  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

inductive  literary  and  historical  inquiry,  and 
results  reached  because  of  an  a  priori  anti- 
supernaturalistic  point  of  view.  The  latter 
results  cannot  be  called  critical  results. 

But,  taking  all  these  considerations  into 
account,  it  is  to  be  noted  that  the  higher 
criticism  of  the  Old  Testament,  though  it 
has  but  lately  come  into  prominence,  has 
been  going  on  for  more  than  two  hundred 
years;  and  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  there 
is  reason  to  expect  any  great  change  in  what 
Canon  Driver  calls  "the  generally  accepted 
conclusions  of  critics." 

Summarily  stated,  these  conclusions  taken 
altogether  give  a  different  conception  than 
that  held  by  the  traditional  view,  of  the 
dates,  order,  authors,  and  mode  of  composi- 
tion of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament;  do 
not  put  all  parts  upon  the  same  level,  but 
rather  emphasize  growth  in  the  religious 
ideas,  institutions,  and  legislation  of  Israel, 
and  hold  that  the  earlier  prophets  preceded 
most  of  this  development ;  and  recognize 
clearly  the  constant  human  element  in  the 
book.  To  particularize  upon  a  single  point — 
mode  of  composition.  From  a  careful  study 
of  the  books  themselves,  there  has  come  to 
be  general  agreement  among  the  critics 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  125 

that  many  books  of  the  Old  Testament  in 
their  present  form  are  not  the  work  of  a 
single  writer  in  the  modern  sense,  but 
rather  compilations  whose  main  documents 
can  still  be  made  out.  In  the  case  of  the 
Hexateuch,  for  example,  it  is  held  that  four 
writers  from  900  B.C.  to  500  B.C.,  using 
ancient  material  and  the  best  traditions  ac- 
cessible, aim  to  retrace  the  history  of  God's 
leading  of  his  people,  to  bring  out  its  moral 
and  religious  lessons.  They  do  this  from 
somewhat  different  points  of  view,  with 
somewhat  different  aims,  emphasizing  some- 
what different  aspects.  These  accounts  are 
later  compiled,  probably  in  stages,  and  edited 
with  some  later  additions,  that  is,  very  much 
as  legislation  is  in  our  own  day.1 

Now  can  the  Christian  Church  adjust 
itself  to  the  changed  point  of  view  involved 
in  these  general  critical  conclusions?  In 
the  first  place,  it  has,  of  course,  to  be  said 
that,  so  far  as  these  conclusions  are  true, 
the  Church  must  adjust  itself  to  them.  The 
questions  are  questions  of  scholarship,  and 
can  be  settled  only  in  the  field  of  scholar- 

1  See  the  careful  discussions  accompanying  the  Oxford  Hexateuch, 
by  J.  E.  Carpenter  and  G.  Harford-Batteraby,  for  the  fullest  pre- 
sentation of  the  questions  involved  in  the  literary  analysis  of  the  Old 
Testament  books. 


126  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

ship.  But  has  the  Church  any  real  reason 
to  fear  the  results  here  indicated  as  the  final 
general  outcome  of  the  critical  study  of  the 
Old  Testament?  I  cannot  believe  it. 


VI.  REASONS    FOR    CONFIDENCE   IN   THE   ABIDING 
SIGNIFICANCE   OF   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT 

Certain  considerations  in  the  reason  of 
the  case  may  well  assure  us.  The  really 
true  and  valuable,  in  the  long  run,  cannot 
suffer  from  the  closest  scrutiny  and  from 
all  possible  light.  It  would  be  only  lack  of 
faith  in  the  Bible  that  could  lead  us  to  seek 
to  withdraw  it  from  such  inquiry. 

Moreover,  since  Christianity  is  a  histori- 
cal religion,  if  we  believe  in  its  truth  at  all, 
we  must  believe  that  such  persistent  and 
painstaking  historical  researches  as  those 
especially  of  the  last  sixty  years  must  help 
us  to  more  accurate  and  illuminating  state- 
ments. Theology  can  be  certain  that  the 
assured  results  of  patient  investigation,  be- 
cause they  will  show  us  more  perfectly  the 
method  that  God  actually  did  take  in  his 
revelation  of  himself  to  men,  will  bring,  not 
disaster,  but  great  enrichment  to  theology. 
His  ways  are  higher  than  our  ways,  and  his 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  12? 

thoughts  than  our  thoughts.  Some  of  the 
adjustments  required  will  in  the  time  of 
transition  no  doubt  seem  difficult  and  even 
threatening ;  but  it  is  certain  that,  so  far  as 
we  are  able  actually  to  find  God's  way — 
and  this  is  the  sole  final  result  of  criticism  — 
it  will  be  better  than  our  way. 

It  is  singular,  too,  that,  while  scholars  of 
every  complexion  now  accept  without  mis- 
giving the  literary  analysis  of  the  synoptic 
Gospels  having  to  do  with  the  very  center  of 
our  faith,  any  should  feel  that  vital  interests 
are  at  stake  in  a  similar  analysis  of  the 
Pentateuch. 

It  is  hardly  less  singular  that  so  many 
should  feel  that  decisions  as  to  the  authorship 
of  Old  Testament  books  are  vital  to  Chris- 
tian faith.  Professor  Briggs  says  broadly, 
for  example:  "It  may  be  regarded  as  the 
certain  result  of  the  science  of  the  higher 
criticism  that  Moses  did  not  write  the  Pen- 
tateuch or  Job ;  Ezra  did  not  write  the 
Chronicles,  Ezra  or  Nehemiah;  Jeremiah 
did  not  write  the  Kings  or  Lamentations ; 
David  did  not  write  the  Psalter,  but  only  a 
few  of  the  Psalms ;  Solomon  did  not  write 
the  Song  of  Songs  or  Ecclesiastes,  and  only 
a  portion  of  the  Proverbs;  Isaiah  did  not 


128  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

write  half  of  the  book  that  bears  his  name."1 
Now  if  one  accepts  fully  this  statement  of 
Professor  Briggs,  what  has  he  done?  He 
has  simply  set  aside,  on  evidence  that  seems 
conclusive  to  most  modern  scholars,  the 
common  Jewish  tradition  as  to  the  author- 
ship of  these  books ;  for  Professor  Briggs 
can  say  in  the  same  connection:  "Higher 
criticism  has  not  contravened  any  decision 
of  any  Christian  Council,  or  any  creed  of 
any  church,  or  any  statement  of  Scripture 
itself." 

Even  more  carefully  and  comprehensively, 
Dr.  Driver  says  in  his  Introduction:  "It  is 
not  the  case  that  critical  conclusions,  such 
as  those  expressed  in  the  present  volume, 
are  in  conflict  either  with  the  Christian 
creeds  or  with  the  articles  of  Christian  faith. 
Those  conclusions  affect  not  the  fact  of  rev- 
elation, but  only  its  form.  They  help  to  de- 
termine the  stages  through  which  it  passed, 
the  different  phases  which  it  assumed,  and 
the  process  by  which  the  record  of  it  was 
built  up.  They  do  not  touch  either  the 
authority  or  the  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures 
of  the  Old  Testament.  They  imply  no 
change  in  respect  to  the  Divine  attributes 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  287. 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER     CRITICISM  I2Q 

revealed  in  the  Old  Testament;  no  change 
in  the  lessons  of  human  duty  to  be  derived 
from  it;  no  change  as  to  the  general  po- 
sition (apart  from  the  interpretation  of  par- 
ticular passages)  that  the  Old  Testament 
points  forward  prophetically  to  Christ. 
That  both  the  religion  of  Israel  itself,  and 
the  record  of  its  history  embodied  in  the 
Old  Testament,  are  the  work  of  men  whose 
hearts  have  been  touched  and  minds  illu- 
mined, in  different  degrees,  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  is  manifest:  but  the  recognition  of  this 
truth  does  not  decide  the  question  of  the 
author  by  whom,  or  the  date  at  which,  par- 
ticular parts  of  the  Old  Testament  were 
committed  to  writing ;  nor  does  it  deter- 
mine the  precise  literary  character  of  a 
given  narrative  or  book."1 

Moreover,  the  books  are  just  what  they 
are,  whoever  wrote  them;  their  moral  and 
spiritual  quality  is  unchanged.  Probably  no 
modern  New  Testament  scholar  believes 
that  Paul  wrote  Hebrews ;  but  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  book  are  not  changed  by 
this  change  of  opinion  as  to  authorship. 
We  have  still  less  reason  for  feeling  that 
vital  interests  are  at  stake  in  decisions  as  to 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  viii. 


ISO  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  authorship  of  Old  Testament  books. 
Does  the  value  of  the  fifty-first  psalm  de- 
pend on  whether  David  wrote  it?  Is  the 
second  part  of  the  book  of  Isaiah  less  up- 
lifting, if  another  than  Isaiah  is  its  author? 
The  conclusions  of  the  critics  ought  rather 
to  mean  to  us,  that  Israel  was  even  richer 
than  we  thought,  that  there  were  a  number 
of  other  great  prophetic  spirits  all  down  its 
history  worthy  to  be  put  side  by  side  with 
Moses,  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah. 

There  are  other  difficulties  more  serious 
than  these  that  seem  to  have  appealed  most 
to  the  popular  imagination;  but  taking  full 
account  of  all  the  difficulties  which  can 
reasonably  be  urged  as  involved  in  the  criti- 
cal position,  we  may  still  count  upon  the 
unique  and  abiding  significance  of  the  Old 
'Testament. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  whatever  the  criti- 
cal results,  it  remains  true  that  the  Old  Tes- 
tament is  the  one  great  moral  book  of  an- 
tiquity. It  is  not  a  mere  collection  of  moral 
aphorisms,  but  shows  the  developing  moral 
sense  everywhere,  in  everything.  Character 
is  really  the  supreme  interest  in  this  book. 
Among  all  the  ancient  peoples,  in  truth, 
only  the  Jews  have  the  modern  sense  of  sin, 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  131 

and  the  Bible  is  in  this  particular  the  only 
ancient  book  with  a  really  modern  tone. 
Compared  with  these  sober  Jews,  even  the 
gifted  Greeks  are  but  playing  children  in 
their  sense  of  sin  and  character.  Speaking 
solely  as  a  philosopher,  Lotze  says  that,  alone 
among  all  the  religions  of  the  world,  Juda- 
ism and  Christianity  stand  out  as  predomi- 
nantly ethical;  the  rest  are  all  predominantly 
"cosmological."1  This  clear  and  constantly 
developing  ethical  tone  felt  in  all  portions 
of  this  ancient  Hebrew  literature  —  in  its 
telling  of  the  earliest  race  traditions,  in  its 
history,  and  in  its  poetry,  as  really  as  in  its 
prophets  —  this  marks  out  the  Bible  dis- 
tinctly from  all  other  ancient  books.  And 
this  fact  has  a  divine  cause ;  it  cannot  be 
accounted  for  by  land  or  climate  or  race — 
many  other  peoples  shared  all  these  —  God 
himself  is  in  some  peculiar  way  back  of  this 
people.  Whatever  the  critical  results,  this 
fact  abides. 

In  a  similar  sense,  the  Bible  is  the  one 
great  religious  book  of  antiquity.  Religious 
books  in  abundance  of  course  the  ancient 
world  had,  and  we  need  not  underestimate 
any  of  them.  But,  for  the  actual  life  of  the 

1  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  Book  VIII,  Chap.  IV. 


132  RECONSTRUCTION     IN    THEOLOGY 

civilization  of  this  nineteenth  century,  only  the 
Bible  is  of  prime  significance.  These  Old 
Testament  writers  have  been,  in  fact,  among 
all  the  ancient  writers,  the  world's  great  spir- 
itual and  religious  seers.  To  the  one  great 
connected  historical  development  which  the 
world  has  seen,  and  which  culminates  in  what 
we  call  modern  civilization,  there  have  been 
three  —  and  only  three  —  great  contributions 
from  the  ancient  world  —  Greek,  Roman,  and 
Hebrew.  The  Greeks  have  been  our  teachers 
in  art,  and  literature,  and  philosophy;  the 
Romans,  in  law;  and  the  Hebrews,  in  re- 
ligion. And  in  even  higher  degree  than  we 
owe  art  and  literature  to  the  Greeks,  and  law 
to  the  Romans,  do  we  owe  religion  to  the 
Jews.  The  Jews  have  given  us  the  beginnings 
of  our  religion,  certain  to  triumph.  Here 
alone,  among  the  ancient  peoples,  was  the 
highest  God-consciousness ;  only  here,  clearly 
and  unmistakably,  the  one  God  of  character. 
From  the  Jews  came  the  only  effective  and 
thoroughly  ethical  monotheism.  Only  here, 
too,  were  those  deep  insights  into  the  forgive- 
ness and  love  of  God,  almost  anticipating 
Christianity.  The  very  greatest  of  the  other 
nations  only  dimly  grope  after  what  is  here 
the  life  of  many  of  the  people — the  heart  of 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  I$3 

it,  and  the  joy  of  it.  Give,  for  example,  to 
the  twenty-third  Psalm  the  latest  date  conceiv- 
able, and  then  contrast  still  the  pathetic  un- 
certain groping  of  a  Socrates  with  its  calm, 
confident  faith.  The  Jews  have  shared  with 
the  world  their  sense  of  God.  Here  in  this 
ancient  literature,  whatever  the  critical  results, 
is  contained  the  record  of  the  preeminent 
meetings  of  God  with  men,  down  to  the  time 
of  Christ.  This  fact  abides. 

Orr,  therefore,  justly  says :  "  The  biblical 
conception  is  separated  from  every  other  by 
its  monotheistic  basis,  its  unique  clearness,  its 
organic  unity,  its  moral  character,  and  its 
teleological  aim.  It  does  not  matter  for  the 
purposes  of  this  argument  what  dates  we  assign 
to  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  in  which 
these  views  are  found — whether  we  attribute 
them,  with  the  critics,  to  the  age  of  the 
prophets,  or  to  any  other.  These  views  are 
at  least  there  many  centuries  before  the  Chris- 
tian age  began,  and  they  are  found  nowhere 
else  than  on  the  soil  of  Israel.  This  is  the 
singular  fact  the  critic  has  to  face,  and  we  can- 
not profess  to  wonder  that,  impartially  study- 
ing it,  voices  should  be  heard  from  the  midst 
of  the  advanced  school  itself,  unhesitatingly 
declaring,  Date  your  books  when  you  will,  this 


134  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

religion  is  not  explicable  save  on  the  hypothe- 
sis of  Revelation."1 

There  are  involved  in  the  two  claims  already 
made  for  the  Bible,  two  others  mutually  com- 
plementary. The  Bible  is,  in  peculiar  degree, 
the  record,  on  the  one  hand,  of  the  progres- 
sive seeking  of  men  after  God,  and,  on  the 
other,  of  the  progressive  self-revelation  of  God 
to  men.  If  the  line  of  the  world's  religious 
development  is  preeminently  through  the  Jew, 
then  here,  most  clearly  of  all,  may  the  mutual 
seeking  of  God  and  men  be  traced.  And  the 
two  conceptions  belong  together,  if  there  is  a 
God  at  all.  The  progressive  seeking  of  these  old 
Hebrew  seers  after  God  is  full  of  lessons  for  the 
whole  period  of  the  growth  of  the  kingdom  of 
God.  We  must  learn  through  others.  And 
we  cannot  let  this  great  line  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets  die  without  great  loss  to  ourselves. 
As  the  modern  philosopher  emphasizes  the 
imperative  need  of  the  careful  study  of  the 
history  of  philosophy,  so,  with  even  greater 
reason,  must  the  religious  man  emphasize  the 
need  of  thorough  acquaintance  with  these 
greatest  of  all  the  ancient  seekers  after  God. 
Amos,  Hosea,  Isaiah,  and  Jeremiah  deserve  a 
place  in  modern  thought  which  they  have 

1  The  Christian  View  of  God  and  the  World,  p.  15. 


THEOLOGY    AND     HIGHER    CRITICISM  135 

never  yet  had  even  in  the  church  ;  and  it  is  the 
modern  historical  study  that  must  chiefly  help 
to  give  them  this  place. 

But  the  Old  Testament  would  not  live  as  it 
has  if  we  could  not  believe  that  it  was  also 
and  chiefly  the  record  of  God's  progressive  self- 
revelation  to  men.  We  need  to  know  and  to  be 
able  to  trace  God's  dealings  with  men.  And 
just  at  this  most  vital  of  all  points,  we  shall  see 
that  critical  study  has  been  a  positive  help. 
Here  are  lessons,  no  otherwise  to  be  learned, 
of  the  costliness  of  character  beyond  all  com- 
parison, of  the  tremendous  earnestness  of  God 
in  his  redemptive  endeavor,  and  of  the  un- 
speakable love  and  patience  of  God  as  he 
guides  his  people  on  toward  righteousness  and 
himself.  This  question  of  the  genuine  objec- 
tive self-revelation  of  God  in  the  history  of 
Israel  is  of  such  prime  importance  as  to  jus- 
tify an  extended  and  careful  statement  by  Pro- 
fessor George  Adam  Smith,  written,  it  should 
be  noted,  frankly  from  the  critical  point  of 
view : 

"  Israel's  monotheism  became  indisputable 
in  the  centuries  from  the  eighth  to  the  sixth 
B.C.,  the  period  of  the  great  Assyrian  inva- 
sions. Before  the  irresistible  Assyrian  advance 
the  tribal  gods  of  Syria — always  identified  with 


136  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  stability  of  their  peoples — went  down  one 
after  another,  and  history  became  reduced  to 
a  uniformity  analogous  to  that  of  nature  in  the 
Semitic  desert.  It  was  in  meeting  the  prob- 
lems which  this  state  of  affairs  excited  that 
the  genius  of  Israel  rose  to  a  grasp  of  the 
world  as  a  whole,  and  to  faith  in  a  sovereign 
Providence.  This  Providence  was  not  the 
military  Empire  that  leveled  the  world ;  he 
was  not  any  of  the  gods  of  Assyria.  He  was 
Israel's  own  tribal  Deity,  who  was  known  to 
the  world  but  as  the  God  of  the  few  hills 
on  which  his  nation  hardly  maintained  her- 
self. Fallen  she  was  as  low  as  her  neighbors ; 
taunted  she  was  by  them  and  by  her  adver- 
saries, to  prove  that  Jehovah  could  save  her 
any  more  than  the  gods  of  Hamath  or  Da- 
mascus, or  the  Philistines,  had  saved  them  :  yet 
both  on  the  eve  of  her  fall,  and  in  her  deep- 
est abasement,  Israel  affirmed  that  Jehovah 
reigned ;  that  he  was  Lord  of  the  hosts  of 
heaven  and  earth ;  that  Assyria  was  only  a  tool 
in  his  hand. 

"  Why  did  Israel  alone  rise  to  this  faith  ? 
Why  did  no  other  of  the  gods  of  the  Assyrian 
clans,  Baals  and  Molochs,  take  advantage  of 
the  opportunity?  Why  should  the  people 
of  Jehovah  alone  see  a  universal  Providence 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  137 

in  the  disasters  which  they  shared,  and  ascribe 
it  to  him? 

"  The  answer  to  these  questions  is  the  be- 
ginning of  Syria's  supreme  rank  in  the  religious 
history  of  mankind.  It  is  writ,  beyond  all  mis- 
reading, in  the  prophets  of  the  time  and  in  the 
history  of  Israel  which  preceded  the  prophets. 
To  use  their  own  phrase,  the  prophets  saw 
Jehovah  exalted  in  righteousness.  And  this  was 
not  their  invention:  it  had  been  implicit  in 
Israel's  conception  of  Jehovah  from  a  very 
early  age.  In  what  are  confessedly  ancient 
documents,  Jehovah  is  the  cause  of  Israel's 
being,  of  the  union  of  their  tribes,  of  their 
coming  to  Palestine,  of  their  instinct  to  keep 
separate  from  other  peoples,  even  when  they 
do  not  seem  to  have  been  conscious  of  a  reason 
why.  But  from  the  first  this  influence  upon 
them  was  ethical.  It  sifted  the  great  body  of 
custom  and  law  which  was  their  common 
heritage  with  all  other  Semitic  tribes ;  it  added 
to  this  both  mercy  and  justice,  mitigating 
the  cruelty  of  some  laws,  where  innocent  or 
untried  life  was  in  danger,  but  strenuously 
enforcing  others,  where  custom,  greed  or 
tyranny  had  introduced  carelessness  with  re- 
gard to  the  most  sacred  interests  of  life.  We 
may  not  always  be  sure  of  the  dates  of  these 


138  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

laws,  but  it  is  past  all  doubt  that  the  ethical 
agent  at  work  in  them  was  at  work  in  Israel 
from  the  beginning,  and  was  the  character, 
the  justice,  the  holiness  of  Jehovah.  But  at 
first  it  was  not  in  law  so  much  as  in  the  events 
of  the  people's  history  that  this  character  im- 
pressed them.  They  knew  all  along  that  he 
had  found  them,  chosen  them,  brought  them 
to  the  land,  borne  with  them,  forgiven  them, 
redeemed  them  in  his  love  and  in  his  pity,  so 
that,  though  it  were  true  that  no  law  had  come 
to  them  from  him,  the  memory  of  all  he  had 
been  to  them,  the  influence  of  himself  in 
their  history,  would  have  remained  their  dis- 
tinction among  the  peoples.  Even  in  that 
rude  time  his  grace  had  been  mightier  than 
his  law. 

"On  such  evidence  we  believe  the  assertion 
of  the  prophets,  that  what  had  made  Israel 
distinct  from  her  kinsfolk,  and  endowed  her 
alone  with  the  solution  of  the  successive  prob- 
lems of  history  and  with  her  high  morality, 
was  the  knowledge  of  a  real  Being  and  inter- 
course with  him.  This  is  what  Revelation 
means.  wl 

Moreover,  Christianity  itself  needs  this  Old 
Testament  revelation;  for,  if  Christ  is  the 

1  The  Historical  Geography  of  the  Holy  Land,  pp.  31-33. 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  139 

true  and  supreme  revelation  of  God,  and  God 
is  the  same  God,  we  shall  inevitably  argue 
that  there  must  have  been  some  similar  pre- 
vious revelation  leading  up  to  Christ.  The 
Old  Testament  makes  more,  not  less,  credible 
the  Christian  revelation.  The  culminating 
revelation  in  Christ,  therefore,  does  not  make 
unnecessary  the  earlier  stages. 

The  Old  Testament  has  peculiar  meaning 
for  us  in  still  another  respect.  The  indi- 
vidual life,  even  as  the  physical,  repeats  in 
some  measure  the  stages  of  the  life  of  the 
race.  What  embryology  reveals  concerning 
the  body,  the  Old  Testament  gives  concern- 
ing the  religious  life.  In  some  form  we  pass 
through  these  experiences  of  Israel  and  know 
these  steps.  The  Old  ^Testament  is  our  own 
life  writ  large.  It  meets  our  varied  moods 
and  reinterprets  our  individual  life  in  a  won- 
derful way.  We  know  what  "Old  Testament 
experiences"  mean.  We  are  not  always  at 
the  stage  of  Christ,  we  are  not  always  pre- 
pared wholly  to  understand  or  value  him. 
The  Old  Testament  proves  often  a  real  prep- 
aration for  him  ;  and,  in  this  sense  too,  be- 
comes our  schoolmaster  to  lead  us  to  Christ. 

But,  in  one  respect,  our  age  least  of  all 
can  spare  the  Old  Testament.  Under  the 


I4O  RECONSTRUCTION     IN     THEOLOGY 

influence  of  the  historical  method  of  study 
now  everywhere  prevalent,  and  of  the  idea 
of  evolution  in  particular,  this  age  feels,  as 
no  preceding  age  has,  that  for  any  adequate 
appreciation  of  the  higher  forms  there  must  be 
study  of  the  lower.  The  lower  forms,  it  is 
seen,  are  simpler,  and  in  them  the  central 
phenomena  are  more  easily  grasped.  Fol- 
lowing through  these  earlier  forms,  we  can 
trace  the  successive  stages ;  we  can  see  what 
falls  away,  what  develops,  what  is  essential ; 
we  can  see  the  changing  emphasis,  under- 
stand the  growing  complexity,  and  appreciate 
the  new  as  it  appears ;  and  the  laws  of  the 
development  become  clear.  If  this  biologi- 
cal method  is  ever  of  importance,  it  must 
be  so,  most  of  all,  in  the  study  of  the  reli- 
gious life  of  the  race.  So  strong,  certainly, 
is  the  influence  of  the  historical  method  in 
our  times  that,  in  our  study  of  Christianity, 
we  should  conjecturally  reconstruct  a  previous 
revelation,  if  we  did  not  have  its  record  in 
the  Old  Testament.  But  now  in  the  Old 
Testament  we  are  able  to  retrace  the  most 
important  steps  in  the  working  out  of  char- 
acter and  faith  in  the  world.  Especially  from 
this  point  of  view  may  one  say  with  Sanday : 
"The  full  rediscovering  and  full  appropriat- 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  141 

ing  of  the  Old  Testament  are  the  special 
problems  of  our  day."1  We  cannot  spare 
the  Old  Testament.  But  obviously,  no  such 
importance  attaches  to  the  study  of  the  forms 
after  the  highest  have  been  reached. 

These  considerations  should  suffice  to  con- 
vince a  man  who  believes  in  a  God  at  all 
that  the  unique  and  abiding  significance  of 
the  Old  Testament  is  not  put  in  jeopardy  by 
any  possible  results  of  critical  study. 

VII.    GAINS  FROM  THE  HISTORICAL  AND  LITERARY 
CRITICISM  OF  THE  OLD  TESTAMENT 

But  if  the  historical  and  literary  criticism 
of  the  Old  Testament  has  inevitably  attended 
a  great  providential  movement  of  scholarship, 
Christian  faith  ought  to  see  that  this  study 
not  only  has  not  destroyed  the  unique  sig- 
nificance of  the  Old  Testament,  but  has  been 
a  positive  help  to  its  spiritual  appreciation, 
appropriation,  and  preaching.  This',  in  spite 
of  unsolved  difficulties,  I  believe  it  will  in- 
creasingly prove  to  be.  What  are  the  gains 
which  even  now  are  clearly  discernible  as  the 
result  of  the  critical  study  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment? They  may  be  grouped  under  three 

1  The  Oracles  of  God,  p.  118. 


142  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

heads :  general  gains,  chiefly  intellectual ;  gains 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  Christianity  is  biblical ; 
and  gains  in  view  of  the  fact  that  Christianity 
is  historical. 

i.  General  Gains  chiefly  Intellectual. — And 
first,  criticism  relieves  of  the  burden  of  the 
false  a  priori  theories  of  inspiration.  We 
shall  come  to  be  grateful  that  this  patient, 
critical  study  of  the  Bible  has  shown  us  that 
the  Bible  itself  makes  no  such  claims  of  error- 
less statement  on  all  possible  points  as  our 
a  priori  theories  claimed  for  it;  and  we  shall 
so  be  guarded  from  serious  misapprehensions 
of  the  real  purpose  of  the  Bible  that  have 
naturally  led  to  its  rejection  by  many.  Such 
attacks  as  those  of  Robert  Ingersoll,  for  ex- 
ample, get  their  whole  point  from  the  as- 
sumptions of  an  a  priori  theory  of  what  the 
Bible  must  be,  if  it  is  to  be  a  divine  reve- 
lation. 

In  the  second  place,  the  literary  analysis 
of  the  Old  Testament  books  has  relieved  of 
many  minor  difficulties,  that  must  be  felt  on 
the  old  hypothesis.  As  soon  as  the  ancient 
mode  of  composition,  especially  of  the  his- 
torical books,  is  understood,  and  it  is  seen 
that  we  often  have  in  the  present  form  of  a 
book  only  the  skilful  weaving  together  of 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  143 

several  accounts  more  or  less  parallel,  phe- 
nomena quite  inexplicable  on  the  theory  of 
a  single  authorship  are  easily  accounted  for 
and  occasion  no  difficulty.  So  repetitions,  lack 
of  classification,  minor  inconsistencies,  differ- 
ent styles  and  points  of  view,  find  their  nat- 
ural explanation ;  and  more  serious  difficul- 
ties, as  especially  that  of  the  relation  of  the 
Hexateuch  to  other  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, particularly  the  Prophets,  are  relieved. 

Moreover,  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that 
this  analysis,  especially  of  the  Hexateuch,  has 
even  helped  historic  credibility  (i)  "by  show- 
ing," as  Professor  Briggs  says,  "that  we  have 
four  parallel  narratives  instead  of  the  single 
narrative  of  the  traditional  theory;  and  (2) 
by  tracing  these  narratives  to  their  sources 
in  the  more  ancient  documents  buried  in 
them."  1 

At  the  same  time,  the  evidence  of  the 
more  minute  study  of  the  Old  Testament 
seems  to  be  that  it  was  not  the  plan  of  God 
miraculously  to  provide  for  the  Hebrews  his- 
torical or  scientific  knowledge  hidden  from 
other  peoples ;  they  are  left  to  use  the  best 
available  knowledge  on  these  points,  and  to 
employ  the  ordinary  methods  of  historical 

1  The  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Hexateuch,  p.  3. 


144  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

composition  prevalent  in  their  time.  Now 
this  seems  at  first  a  real  loss  in  our  estimate 
of  the  Bible.  But  this  seeming  loss  may  be- 
come a  genuine  gain,  since  it  keeps  us  from 
an  abuse  of  the  Bible,  and  forbids  us  to  mis- 
take the  secondary  and  incidental  for  the 
primary  and  essential,  and  only  brings  out 
into  stronger  light  the  true  providential  func- 
tion of  Israel  and  its  literature  —  not  to  teach 
the  world  science  or  history,  but  to  help 
men  to  find  God  and  to  be  found  of  God. 
And  this  great,  supremely  great,  contribution 
is  here  just  the  same,  though  you  criticize 
the  historical ;  perhaps  is  even  more  clear 
because  you  recognize  the  other  limitations 
which  these  writers  share  with  their  times, 
and  still  see,  side  by  side  with  those  limita- 
tions, this  surpassing  sense  of  God,  beyond 
their  times  and  in  much  beyond  ours  also. 
This  has  just  one  natural  explanation — God's 
own  self-revealing.  This  is  much  more  than 
an  intellectual  result. 

2.  Gains  in  View  of  the  Fact  that  Chris- 
tianity is  'Biblical. — If  Christianity  is  really 
built  upon  a  biblical  foundation,  it  can  hardly 
be  questioned  that  anything  that  helps  to  a 
completer  mastery  of  the  Bible,  to  a  more  per- 
fect intellectual  understanding  of  how  it  came 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  145 

to  be  and  of  what  it  is, — and  it  is  exactly  this 
that  the  higher  criticism  claims  to  give — in 
the  end  is  bound  to  help  to  its  best  spiritual 
use.  Christianity  is  a  rational  religion,  and 
makes  its  appeal  to  the  entire  man.  The 
truth,  only  the  truth,  and  the  whole  truth 
about  the  Bible  must  be  finally  best  for 
Christianity. 

Nor  is  it  true  to  say  that  we  can  safely 
ignore  critical  results  as  of  no  essential  sig- 
nificance. The  one  great  lesson  of  scientific 
investigation  in  every  field  has  been,  that  we 
can  safely  ignore  no  element  of  truth  any- 
where, for  we  are  in  no  position  to  tell 
beforehand  how  important  it  may  prove.  If 
Christianity  is  biblical  at  all,  we  cannot  know 
the  Bible  too  well  from  any  point  of  view. 
That  the  minute  historical  and  literary  study 
of  the  Bible,  involved  in  higher  criticism,  has 
greatly  increased  our  knowledge  of  the  phe- 
nomena of  the  Bible  at  many  points  is  beyond 
question.  Indeed,  it  is  hardly  too  much  to 
say  that  the  difficulties  of  the  higher  criti- 
cism would  largely  vanish  for  the  church  if 
its  membership  could  be  persuaded  to  make 
careful  first-hand  inductive  book-studies  of 
the  Bible,  book  by  book. 

3.    Gains  in    View  of  the  Fact   that   Chris- 


146  RECONSTRUCTION    IN  THEOLOGY 

tianity  is  Historical. — Because  Christianity  is 
a  historical  religion,  it  is  also  certain  to  gain 
from  the  critical  study  of  the  Old  Testament. 
If  our  generation  is  more  strongly  marked 
than  any  other  by  the  historical  spirit,  in  just 
the  degree  in  which  Christianity  is  historical, 
this  generation  should  be  able  to  have  a  bet- 
ter appreciation  of  Christianity  and  a  stronger 
grip  upon  a  historical  presentation  of  the 
revelation  of  God,  such  as  critical  study  has 
made  possible.  This  very  spirit  makes  us 
feel  more  than  ever  the  appeal  of  realities 
too.  We  are  asking  everywhere  "what  really 
happened."  We  wish  to  be  able  to  reproduce 
in  every  inquiry  the  actual  historical  setting. 
Moreover,  it  has  become  more  clear  than  ever 
to  our  generation  that  the  greatest  moral 
appeal  must  always  come  through  persons; 
that  the  one  great  road  to  character  is  not 
through  intellectual  formulizing,  nor  through 
constant  moralizing,  but  through  association 
with  the  best — catching  their  spirit. 

Now,  every  one  of  these  appeals — of  the 
historical,  the  real,  and  the  personal — felt  so 
strongly  by  our  generation,  is  made  more 
strong  by  the  results  of  criticism.  We  can 
trace  the  historical  development  of  the  reve- 
lation of  God  with  a  certainty  never  before 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  147 

attainable;  we  can  place  before  our  imagi- 
nations the  actual  historical  situation  in  the 
different  periods  as  no  preceding  age  could 
do ;  and  we  can  make  the  Bible  more  in- 
tensely personal  than  ever.  We  can  know 
the  precise  situation  which  confronted  Amos 
and  Hosea,  for  example;  we  can  feel  their 
problems  and  trace  their  motives,  and  we  are 
drawn  by  their  spirit  as  never  before.  The 
appeal  of  the  personal  life  here  is  immensely 
strengthened.  And  if  it  is  the  incarnate  idea 
that  really  counts  in  life,  there  must  be  great 
gain  finally  from  critical  results  for  the  per- 
sonal spiritual  appropriation  and  preaching  of 
the  Old  Testament.  It  is  within  the  truth  to 
say  that  the  greater  part  of  the  prophets  has 
been  a  sealed  book  to  the  church  at  large. 
Thanks  to  critical  study,  it  need  be  so  no 
longer.  How  much  ought  it  to  mean  to 
the  church  to  make  to  live  again  this  great 
line  of  the  Hebrew  prophets ! 

All  this  means  that  a  real  historical  interpre- 
tation of  the  Old  Testament — the  only  true 
interpretation — is  possible  to  our  generation 
to  a  degree  never  before  true.  We  can  know 
more  certainly  just  what  the  revelation  meant 
to  those  to  whom  it  first  came.  And  if  we 
believe  that  the  Bible  contains  a  real  revela- 


148  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

tion  from  God,  and  care  to  find  out  just  what 
that  revelation  is — God's  own  lesson,  his  work 
— and  are  not  contented  to  read  our  own 
ideas  into  the  record,  we  shall  thank  God  for 
the  greater  historical  light  of  these  later  days. 
As  certainly,  too,  as  God  is  revealed  in  act, 
so  certainly  does  the  greater  ability  to  trace  the 
actual  historical  succession  of  events  in  the 
Old  Testament  mean  great  additional  light 
upon  the  actual  steps  in  God 'j  self -revelation,  and 
so  help  us  better  to  know  God  himself  in  the 
patient  loving  adaptation  of  his  redemptive 
leading  of  his  people.  The  history  itself — 
this  is  the  real  and  primary  revelation,  not  the 
record.  Every  step,  therefore,  in  the  unravel- 
ing of  the  actual  process  of  God's  dealing  with 
,Israel  is  a  direct  religious  contribution.  We 
reach  the  certainty  of  God  not  in  words,  but 
in  the  facts  of  the  historical  process  itself. 
God  is  in  it,  we  say.  This,  these  prophetic 
spirits  in  Israel  first  discerned.  And,  facing 
the  facts  again  through  them,  and  in  some 
respects  more  perfectly  than  they,  we  share 
their  vision  of  God  and  catch  their  faith.  Or 
perhaps  rather,  the  earnestness  of  their  faith 
turns  our  attention  to  the  history,  and  then  in 
face  of  the  history  the  revelation  of  God  is 
born  in  us  as  it  was  originally  in  them.  "The 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  149 

certainty  of  God  is  not  a  product  of  human 
strivings." 

Here  in  the  Old  Testament  we  come  into 
fellowship  with  the  real  God,  who  is  the 
creator  of  the  real  world  and  acts  in  the  real 
course  of  history.  Not  an  imaginary  God,  a 
dream  God,  a  God  of  mystic  contemplation 
or  of  metaphysical  speculation,  but  the  real 
God  of  real  life  and  history — Israel  discerned. 
This  is  the  glory  of  these  books,  and  the 
secret  of  their  sanity  and  permanence  and 
power  as  well.  To  be  quickened  ourselves, 
therefore,  by  the  faith  and  vision  of  God  of 
these  old  prophetic  spirits,  whatever  their 
limitations,  and  then  to  be  able  to  see  for  our- 
selves in  this  history  of  Israel  the  presence  of 
God,  by  his  own  revelation  in  us — this  is  the 
supreme  office  of  the  Old  Testament;  this  re- 
mains, and  is  even  strengthened  by  criticism. 
This  is  the  self-evidence  of  the  Old  Testament 
— God  speaking  through  it. 

VIII.     THE   PRESENT   POSITIVE  RESULTS    FOR 
THEOLOGY 

Since  theology  is  at  its  best  a  thoughtful 
statement  of  what  religion  means  to  us,  every 
gain  for  the  spiritual  life  from  the  newer  study 


ISO  RECONSTRUCTION     IN     THEOLOGY 

of  the  Bible  is  a  distinct  gain  for  theology, 
and  every  change  in  religious  feeling  concern- 
ing the  Bible  becomes  a  new  problem  for 
theology.  Since  Christian  theology,  too,  pro- 
fesses to  build  directly  upon  the  self-revelation 
of  God  contained  in  the  Bible,  any  important 
change  in  the  conception  of  the  Bible  cannot 
leave  theology  unaffected.  Once  more,  the 
peculiarly  authoritative  position  which  has 
been  given  to  the  Bible  by  Protestants  makes 
all  questions  concerning  it  of  special  impor- 
tance for  Protestant  theologians.  For  all  these 
reasons,  the  considerations  of  the  preceding 
discussion  must  have  important  bearings  on 
Christian  Protestant  theology ;  and  certain  of 
these  bearings  deserve  to  be  particularized. 

i.  In  the  first  place,  this  exhaustive  histori- 
cal and  literary  study  of  the  phenomena  of  the 
Bible,  involved  in  the  higher  criticism,  has 
brought  out  into  clear  prominence  the  one 
great  purpose  of  the  Bible,  in  absolute  agree- 
ment with  Paul's  own  clear  statement,1  that  it 
is  neither  science  nor  history,  but  solely  and 
simply  a  record  of  the  historical  self-revelation 
of  God  to  a  single  people  and  so  to  all  men, 
looking  always  to  the  winning  of  men  into 
a  character  like  God's.  This  means  that  even 

1  2  Tim.  2:16,  17. 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  151 

in  books  called  historical,  its  writers  are  not 
interested  in  strict  scientific  history  at  all,  any 
more  than  in  some  other  books  they  are  in- 
terested in  pure  natural  science ;  though  we 
may  well  be  impressed  with  the  rare  reserve 
and  sobriety  of  the  biblical  writings  even  in 
these  respects — a  reserve  and  sobriety  born  of 
high  ethical  and  religious  views.  And  yet 
nature  and  history  both  concern  these  biblical 
writers  only  as  revelations  of  God.  A  com- 
plete account  of  either  lies  quite  outside  their 
task.  They  select  only  those  features  that  can 
be  turned  to  religious  account.  They  make 
no  attempt  to  trace  all  the  causal  connections ; 
they  do  seek  to  show  what  both  nature  and, 
especially,  history  mean  for  religion — how  God 
reveals  himself  in  them.  Because  they  con- 
centrated themselves  upon  this  one  task,  they 
are  the  world's  teachers  in  neither  science, 
nor  history,  nor  law,  nor  art,  nor  philosophy 
— but  we  all  sit  at  their  feet  in  religion.  Even 
the  historical  writers,  especially  in  the  Old 
Testament,  are,  therefore,  properly  prophets, 
preaching  from  historical  texts,  and  the  Jews 
rightly  called  them  so. 

2.  In  the  second  place,  the  results  of  the 
critical  study  of  the  Bible  require  from  the- 
ology a  much  fuller  recognition  of  the  principle 


152  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

of  progress  in  revelation;  that  this  progress  is 
to  be  seen  in  every  part  of  the  Old  Testament 
— in  the  historical  divine  leading  and  in  the 
recognition  of  it,  in  the  prophets  themselves, 
and  in  the  legislative  codes  and  institutions  and 
ideas  of  the  people.  In  particular  the  prin- 
ciple involves  inevitably  the  relative  imperfec- 
tion of  all  the  earlier  stages,  and  makes  Christ 
the  absolute  standard  in  the  Bible  as  well  as 
out  of  it.  Even  the  moral  and  religious  teach- 
ings, then,  of  the  Old  Testament  are  not  for 
us  finally  authoritative.  We  believe  in  a  pro- 
gressive revelation  culminating  in  Christ,  and 
Christ  alone  thus  becomes  our  ultimate  stand- 
ard by  which  all  that  precedes  must  be  tested. 
We  are  not  "to  expect  to  find  the  perfect 
revelation  in  the  earlier  stages.  We  are  free 
to  examine,  and  we  must  be  honest  and  can- 
did. No  part  of  the  Old  Testament  is  written 
in  the  full  light  of  the  Christian  revelation, 
and  we  are,  therefore,  free  to  judge  the  Old 
Testament  by  Christ,  so  far  as  ultimate  truth 
is  concerned.  But  this  is  very  far  from  mean- 
ing that  we  can  wisely  do  without  the  Old 
Testament,  as  the  reasons  already  given  for 
the  abiding  significance  of  the  Old  Testament 
show.  Indeed,  it  is  this  very  principle  of  the 
progress  of  revelation  which  enables  us  to 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  153 

make  the  best  use  of  the  Old  Testament. 
Theology  never  had  any  need  to  affirm  any 
other  principle  for  the  Old  Testament  than 
this  of  the  progress  of  revelation,  but  it  has 
certainly  not  yet  fully  adjusted  itself  to  this 
fact. 

3.  In  the  third  place,  this  more  careful 
biblical  study  is  making  clear,  what  a  really 
spiritual  view  of  inspiration  would  lead  us  to 
expect,  that,  with  all  its  wonderful  unity  of 
development,  there  is  no  mechanical  unity  in 
the  Bible  or  even  in  the  New  Testament, 
but  that  the  different  writers  show  individual 
reflections  of  a  religious  experience  more  or 
less  common  to  them.  In  the  New  Testa- 
ment this  gives  individual  reflections  of  Christ. 
It  is  in  this  very  way  that  we  are  able  to 
approach  any  adequate  conception  of  the  real 
significance  of  Christ,  and  of  that  larger 
unity  which  comes  from  him  and  not  from 
the  single  expression  of  even  his  greatest 
disciple.  No  one  view,  no  single  expression, 
can  suffice.  The  work  of  Christ  is  deeper 
and  broader  than  any  single  statement  of  it, 
even  in  Scripture.  The  recognition  of  this 
fact  has  promise,  not  only  of  a  reasonable 
freedom  for  theology,  but  of  large  growth  as 
well,  and  of  a  better  appreciation  of  the  rich- 


154         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 

ness  of  the  New  Testament  testimony  itself. 
And  what  is  here  said  of  the  New  Testament 
holds  in  only  less  degree  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  well;  and  its  recognition  there  will 
give  a  similar  increased  appreciation  of  the 
richness  and  many-sidedness  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament testimony. 

4.  The  results  of  historical  and  literary 
criticism  for  theology,  now  indicated,  plainly 
carry  with  them  a  further  result.  We  cannot 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  newer  histori- 
cal view  of  the  Bible,  in  the  nature  of  the  case, 
does  not  allow  the  theologian  of  to-day  to  use 
the  Bible  in  the  same  way  as  the  older  theo- 
logians. He  must  frankly  confess  that  he 
does  not  feel  free  to  quote  indifferently  from 
any  part  as  of  equal  authority  with  every  other. 
He  cannot  use  it,  as,  for  example,  the  West- 
minster divines  used  it  in  support  of  their 
system.  Proof-texts  in  the  old  sense  sink 
quite  out  of  sight.  Superficially,  he  may 
seem  to  be  using  the  Bible  much  less ;  but  a 
severe  Bible  student  may  at  the  same  time  be 
able  to  discern  in  a  modest  paragraph,  that 
contains  no  direct  biblical  quotations  or  ref- 
erences, evidence  of  a  careful  comprehensive 
inductive  study  of  a  whole  section  of  the  bib- 
lical revelation. 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  155 

The  modern  theologian  does  not  believe 
the  Bible  less  divine,  but  he  finds  the  evidence 
of  its  divinity  in  other  characteristics  —  be- 
lieves the  divinity  shown  in  a  different  way. 
If  he  is  true  to  the  spirit  of  his  time,  his 
theology  will  certainly  be  even  more  bibli- 
cal than  that  of  his  latest  predecessors.  But 
it  will  be  so,  through  a  profounder  study  of 
the  great  comprehensive  trends  of  Scripture ; 
through  a  deeper  appreciation  of  the  great 
periods  in  the  divine  revelation,  and  of  the 
many-sidedness  of  the  Christian  truth  there 
brought  out;  and  through  the  consequent 
molding  and  permeating  of  his  entire  theol- 
ogy by  the  great  fundamental  principles  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  The  older  systems, 
with  a  most  abundant  show  of  proof-texts, 
might  easily  be  almost  wholly  speculative,  in 
the  real  heart  of  them  little  affected  by  the 
biblical  view.  Such  a  use  of  Scripture  is 
hardly  possible  now.  We  must  learn  to  dis- 
tinguish in  theology  between  the  superficially 
biblical  and  the  really  biblical. 

5.  Once  more,  it  is  evident  that  the  results 
of  higher  criticism  mean  for  theology  a  re- 
statement of  the  doctrine  of  inspiration,  just 
because  the  older  views  were  a  priori, — not 
formed  in  full  view  of  the  actual  phenomena 


156         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 

of  the  Bible.  The  traditional  and  critical 
views  alike  may  agree  that  the  Bible  is  to  be 
counted  in  a  special  sense  inspired.  Or,  as 
Horton  puts  it,  "we  mean  by  inspiration  ex- 
actly those  qualities  and  characteristics  which 
are  the  marks  or  notes  of  the  Bible."  The 
simple  question  is,  What  are  those  qualities  ? 
We  believe  God  did  reveal  himself;  how  did 
he  actually  proceed?  The  answer  can  be 
given  only  by  an  inductive  study  of  the  facts 
about  the  Bible.  Exactly  such  a  study  the 
higher  criticism  professes  to  give,  and  a  por- 
tion of  its  answer  has  already  been  indicated. 
Beyond  this,  it  may  be  added  that  such  a 
study  makes  clear  that  the  Bible  itself  as- 
sumes that  the  original  revelation  is  in  God's 
actual  historical  dealing  with  the  people  in 
act;  that  the  Bible  is  thus  strictly  a  record 
of  revelation,  rather  than  the  primitive  rev- 
elation itself ;  and,  moreover,  it  is  a  record 
even  more  of  what  God  did,  than  of  what  he 
said.  The  biblical  assumption  everywhere  is 
that  the  living  God  comes  into  touch  with 
living  men.  The  Bible,  indeed,  may  per- 
haps be  best  conceived  as  the  record  of  the 
preeminent  meetings  of  God  with  men.  The 
objective  historical  reality  of  the  revelation  of 
God  to  Israel  is,  then,  distinctly  asserted. 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  157 

But  what  has  been  already  said  concern- 
ing the  primary  purpose  of  Scripture,  the 
progress  of  revelation,  and  the  individual  re- 
flections in  the  Bible,  make  it  plain  that  this 
meeting  of  God  and  men,  in  the  biblical 
representation  of  it,  involves  no  suppression 
of  the  human  but  rather  the  fullest  use  of  it. 
As  Matheson  phrases  it:  "Such  is  the  lead- 
ing idea  of  Christian  inspiration — the  growth 
of  the  divine  through  the  capacities  of  the 
human."  This  is  indeed  just  what  the  su- 
preme interest  of  the  Bible  in  character,  in 
bringing  about  a  real  personal  relation  be- 
tween God  and  man,  would  lead  us  to  expect. 
The  Bible  is  nowhere  satisfied  with  a  me- 
chanical result.  The  statement  of  the  most 
absolute  truth,  that  meant  nothing  to  the 
man  who  uttered  it  or  to  the  others  who 
heard  it,  that  had  not  grown  out  of  their 
own  living  experience  of  God,  is  to  the  Bible 
a  result  without  significance.  The  aim  is 
plainly,  not  to  get  certain  words  spoken  or 
certain  acts  done,  but  to  get  righteous  and 
godly  men.  God  inspires,  in  whatever  way, 
the  life  —  the  experience,  and  the  man  speaks 
or  writes  out  of  this  experience.  The  ex- 
perience is  his  own,  necessarily  limited  by 
attainments  already  made. 


158  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

This  whole  conception,  forced  upon  us 
by  the  actual  facts  especially  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, accurately  corresponds  with  the  gen- 
eral New  Testament  doctrine  of  the  Holy 
Spirit  in  the  Christian  life  of  the  believer  — 
that  no  single  step  of  the  Christian  life  is 
taken  by  man  alone,  or  by  God  alone,  but 
always  by  God  and  man  —  and  with  the  sin- 
gle case  in  which  Christ  distinctly  asserts 
divine  revelation  to  a  disciple.  Christ  says 
to  Peter,  after  his  great  confession :  "Blessed 
art  thou,  Simon  Bar-Jonah ;  for  flesh  and 
blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but  my 
Father  which  is  in  heaven."  l  Here  it  seems 
plain  that  the  revelation  had  been  a  growing 
one,  growing  upon  him  through  the  days  of 
his  close  association  with  Christ,  and  produc- 
ing a  deepening  conviction  of  the  Messiah- 
ship  of  Jesus.  And  this  revelation  did  not 
save  him  from  immediate  misconception  on 
another  most  important  point,  as  the  narra- 
tive goes  on  to  show.  Christ  is  seeking,  not 
a  mechanically  errorless  statement  from  Peter 
which  mere  dictation  might  have  secured  at 
any  moment,  but  a  far  more  costly  product 
—  to  bring  him  to  an  honest  personal  follow- 
ing of  Christ  for  what  Christ  is  in  himself, 

1Matt.  16:17. 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER     CRITICISM  159 

because  of  a  clear  conviction  growing  out  of 
his  own  experience.  And  there  is  no  shorter 
route  to  any  real  revelation,  to  actual  moral 
and  spiritual  results. 

Such  a  view  of  inspiration  necessarily  im- 
plies always  both  human  and  divine  elements; 
for  it  seeks  the  moral  and  spiritual  growth 
of  men  under  God's  education.  This  means, 
in  the  first  place,  that  God  begins  with  Israel 
where  they  are,  as  every  teacher  and  revealer 
must.  For  there  is  no  teaching  without  a 
corresponding  learning.  There  is  no  reve- 
lation without  some  response,  some  ability  to 
take  the  revelation  in,  some  rising  on  the  part 
of  man  to  meet  the  truth  given.  So  customs, 
forms  of  observance  and  worship,  which  Is- 
rael shared  with  other  Semites,  are  not  forth- 
with under  revelation  set  aside ;  they  are  re- 
tained but  regulated,  purified,  given  new  mo- 
tives and  sanctions,  and  so  put  on  a  different 
religious  basis.  This  is  true,  for  example, 
of  feasts,  of  sacrifices,  of  circumcision,  of 
laws.  God  begins  where  the  people  are. 

Moreover,  when  one  thinks  what  a  real 
moral  and  spiritual  revelation  to  a  man  means, 
he  must  see  that  there  can  be  a  growing  revela- 
tion only  as  the  man  grows,  as  he  comes  little  by 
little  into  that  experience  of  life  out  of  which 


l6o  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

he  can  interpret  the  revelation.  We  recognize 
perfectly  in  reference  to  children  that  it  is 
wholly  vain  to  anticipate  the  years  by  telling 
them  beforehand  the  deeper  things  of  life. 
There  comes  a  time  when  they  can  under- 
stand ;  the  wisest  words  upon  that  point  be- 
fore that  time  are  only  words.  Any  revelation, 
even  though  it  be  conceived  as  given  by  abso- 
lute divine  dictation,  must  still  be  put  into 
forms  of  human  thought  and  language,  thought 
by  men,  and  interpreted  by  men  to  men.  It 
is  impossible  to  avoid  the  human  element, 
and  if  it  could  be  avoided,  the  aim  of  all  reve- 
lation—  the  growth  of  the  man  —  would  be 
left  out. 

The  inspired  act  and  word,  then,  must  be 
the  man's  as  well  as  God's  if  they  are  to  be 
moral  at  all.  Otherwise,  too,  we  could  expect 
no  response  to  the  revelation  from  others — it 
would  fall  dead  and  worthless ;  for  the  revealer 
is  presumably  the  highest,  and  if  the  revela- 
tion means  nothing  even  to  him,  still  less  can 
it  come  home  to  others.  If,  now,  the  human 
and  divine  are  always  really  to  cooperate,  if  the 
man  is  to  be  truly  inspired,  if  the  act  and  word 
are  to  be  genuinely  his  as  well  as  God's,  then 
the  result  in  each  case  must  be  limited  by  the 
man's  growth,  his  previous  experience  of  God 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  l6l 

and  spiritual  things,  his  capacity  to  receive. 
The  man  may  only  get  what  he  can. 

God  has,  therefore,  probably  not  at  any  point 
stepped  in  miraculously  to  get  a  mechanically 
perfect  outcome,  when  the  morally  ideal  re- 
sult did  not  appear.  He  is  not  dictating  ideal 
propositions;  he  is  educating  men.  We  may 
expect,  therefore,  to  find  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  Israel's  training,  under  what  men  took  to 
be  God's  revelation  and  was,  imperfect  con- 
ceptions of  the  will  of  God — crude  morals, 
treasured  revenge,  the  cursing  of  enemies, 
wars  of  extermination.  God  is  not  the  less 
teaching,  that  men  learn  slowly  and  come 
slowly  into  character. 

This  view  means  for  us  too  in  this  day,  that 
if  the  Bible  is  to  be  to  us  a  revelation,  we  must 
be  inspired.  "  Unless  God  be  heard  in  the 
soul,"  Fairbairn  says,  "he  will  not  be  found  in 
the  Word."  "  In  revelation  the  living  God 
speaks,  not  simply  has  spoken,  to  living  man." 
!t  We  come  back,  then,  to  the  position  that 
authority  belongs  to  the  Bible,  not  as  a  book, 
but  as  a  revelation ;  and  it  is  a  revelation,  not 
because  it  has  been  canonized,  but  because  it 
contains  the  history  of  the  Redeemer  and  our 
redemption."1 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  498,  499,  508. 
K 


l62  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

This  history  of  the  Redeemer  and  our  re- 
demption, in  all  its  long  preparation  and 
progress,  this  discussion  maintains,  has  be- 
come more  manifest,  more  convincing,  and 
more  appealing  through  historical  criticism. 
The  outcome  ought  to  be  that  the  Old  Testa- 
ment should  become,  not  less,  but  more,  vastly 
more  than  it  has  been — God  brought  closer 
to  men,  to  history,  to  life;  the  living  God  in 
touch  with  living  men.  When  we  shall  have 
garnered  the  full  results  of  the  critical  histori- 
cal and  literary  study  of  the  Old  Testament, 
we  shall  have  an  ordered  and  vivid  conception 
of  the  progress  of  the  divine  revelation  in  all 
its  parts,  that  will  make  the  entire  Old  Testa- 
ment more  real,  more  rational,  more  personal, 
more  vital,  and  that  will  consequently  get  a 
constantly  deepening  hold  on  the  imagination, 
on  the  heart,  and  on  the  life.  The  best  teach- 
ing and  the  best  preaching  of  the  Bible  that 
the  world  has  ever  seen,  it  may  well  be  be- 
lieved, are  still  ahead. 

Such  a  view  of  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible 
as  has  now  been  indicated  has  these  decided 
gains:  that  it  fits  the  highest  Christian  concep- 
tions of  the  relation  of  God  and  men ;  that  it 
makes  even  more  real  the  divine  element  in 
the  Bible,  affirming  on  increasingly  clear  his- 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  163 

torical  grounds  the  objective  reality  of  a  unique 
divine  revelation  to  Israel,  and  accepting,  as 
we  have  already  shown,  the  testimony  of  the 
prophetic  consciousness  as  scientifically  trust- 
worthy; that  it  does  not  evade  in  the  slightest 
degree  the  full  human  element,  and  is  able  to 
bring  it  into  its  conception  even  where  plainly 
wrong ;  that  it  brings  harmony  into  all  God's 
methods,  as  everywhere  progressive  and  adap- 
tive ;  and  especially  that  it  brings  the  methods 
of  God  in  the  Old  Testament  into  essential 
harmony  with  his  method  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment and  at  present,  and  gives  thus  a  con- 
ception in  which  one  may  rest  as  justified  in 
the  face  of  all  the  facts.  We  shall  come  to 
be  grateful  that  the  phenomena  of  the  Bible 
disclosed  by  patient  study  compelled  us  to 
a  restatement  of  the  doctrine  of  inspiration, 
that  eliminated  from  it  the  mechanical,  and 
brought  it  into  full  accord  with  the  working 
of  God  in  our  own  hearts  as  promised  by 
Christ  —  never  God  alone,  and  never  man 
alone,  but  always  God  and  man,  in  a  personal 
cooperation  that  means  character  and  love. 

^Difference  from  post-Biblical  Inspiration. — But 
just  here,  a  single  additional  problem  is  at 
once  suggested.  Is  there  any  difference,  then, 
between  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible,  and  that 


1 64  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

of  many  men  and  many  writings  since  ?  If 
God  is  still  inspiring  men,  and  revealing  him- 
self to  them,  why  should  we  give  a  place  of 
such  unique  importance  to  the  Scriptures  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  ?  These  ques- 
tions deserve  a  frank  and  careful  answer. 

Now,  no  doubt,  we  must  recognize  differ- 
ences in  inspiration  in  the  books  of  the  Bible 
itself,  especially  in  the  Old  Testament.  They 
are  by  no  means  to  be  put  all  upon  the  same 
plane,  nor  are  all  equally  indispensable.  This 
was  the  clear  and  strong  opinion  of  even  the 
Jews  from  the  first.  And  we  are  certainly  not 
to  deny  the  work  of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the 
hearts  of  men  since  biblical  times,  inspiring 
them  and  making  them  mediums  of  revelation 
to  others. 

But  all  this  contains  no  reason  for  question- 
ing the  statement,  previously  quoted  from 
Lotze,  that  w there  is  nothing  whatever  that 
stands  in  opposition  to  the  further  conviction 
that  God  at  particular  moments  and  in  par- 
ticular persons  may  have  stood  nearer  to 
humanity,  or  may  have  revealed  himself  at 
such  moments  and  in  such  persons  in  a  more 
eminent  way  than  at  other  moments  and  in 
other  persons." 

In  any  case,  we  have  to  judge  chiefly  by  the 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  165 

facts  themselves — the  actual  results,  the  effects 
in  the  life  of  individuals  and  nations.  We  can 
use  no  arbitrary  standard.  Now,  so  judging, 
as  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  no  book  of  antiquity 
that  we  can  put  beside  the  Old  Testament,  no 
modern  book  that  we  can  put  beside  either 
the  Old  Testament  or  the  New  Testament,  for 
permanent  universal  moral  and  spiritual  ap- 
peal, for  inspiring  qualities,  for  making  real  to 
us  the  moral  and  spiritual  world,  for  making 
God  real,  giving  us  assurance  of  him,  and 
drawing  us  to  him. 

Even  more  important  and  fundamental  is 
this — for  the  revelation  is  of  God,  and  inspira- 
tion is  the  meeting  of  God  with  men — the 
Bible  of  the  race  must  be  the  record  of  the 
preeminent  meetings  of  God  with  men. 

Now,  in  the  history  of  no  people  is  God  so 
plainly  present,  back  of  none  is  God  so  plainly 
to  be  seen,  as  in  and  back  of  Israel;  and  what 
the  Bible  has  been  to  the  race — Old  Testament 
as  well  as  New  Testament — proves  this.  More- 
over, it  is  this  Jewish  history  and  prophecy 
which  prepare  for  the  revelation  in  Christ  and 
culminate  in  him ;  and  this  fact  again  gives  the 
Old  Testament  a  unique  place  in  the  spiritual 
literature  of  the  race.  The  Old  Testament,  in 
truth,  has  added  meaning  now  from  the  knowl- 


l66  RECONSTRUCTION     IN    THEOLOGY 

edge  of  its  culmination.  In  a  word,  the  Bible 
stands  apart  from  all  other  books,  just  because 
it  is  the  record  of  the  most  marked  of  the 
actual  historical  meetings  of  God  with  men  for 
ethical  and  spiritual  ends. 

As  a  simple  matter  of  fact,  too,  we  cannot 
overlook  the  immense  difference  between  the 
New  Testament  as  a  whole  and  even  the  best 
of  the  Christian  literature  of  the  second  cen- 
tury. We  are  interested  in  the  later  literature  ; 
but  it  simply  does  not  seem  to  us  to  possess 
any  such  significance  as  the  New  Testament. 
However  we  may  explain  the  difference,  we 
are  bound  to  recognize  the  fact.  The  explana- 
tion is  perhaps  not  far  to  seek — the  immediate, 
almost  unconscious,  reflection  of  the  greatness 
of  Christ's  own  personality. 

Now  the  historical  self-revelation  of  God 
culminated  in  Christ.  We  can  conceive  noth- 
ing higher ;  we  only  try  to  feel  our  way  into 
the  meaning  of  his  spirit  and  teaching,  and  the 
breadth  and  depth  of  their  application.  God 
has  not  left  the  world ;  he  still  works  in  every 
heart  open  to  him,  but  he  has  nothing  to  show 
beyond  what  Christ  means.  The  Spirit  bears 
witness  of  Christ;  he  takes  of  his  and  shows 
it  unto  us.  The  perfect  revelation  of  the 
Son  and  of  the  Father  has  been  made ;  the 


THEOLOGY    AND    HIGHER    CRITICISM  167 

complete  ideal  toward  which  humanity  is  to 
work  has  been  already  given;  the  satisfying 
revelation  of  God,  given.  We  have  only 
to  grow  continually  into  the  meaning  of  the 
revelation. 

The  record  of  this  culminating  revelation 
is  naturally  in  the  many-sided  reflections  of 
this  supreme  person  upon  his  own  generation. 
These  are  necessary  that  we  may  continually 
go  back  to  him,  and  catch  anew  in  its  full 
historical  setting  the  supreme  revelation  of 
God.  With  these  the  great  spiritual  book  of 
the  race  naturally  closes.  No  later  books,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  can  have  this  unique 
mission  and  significance. 

With  the  full  recognition  of  the  influence 
of  historical  and  literary  criticism  upon  it, 
theology  will  not  only  cease  to  be  uncritical 
and  unhistorical,  but  at  the  same  time  become 
more  biblical  and  more  Christian. 

The  discussion  of  the  influence  of  historical 
criticism  upon  theology  concludes  the  consid- 
eration of  the  mainly  intellectual  influences  of 
our  time.  When  we  turn  from  these  to  the 
influences  distinctly  moral  and  spiritual,  we 
may  perhaps  group  them  all  under  the  two 
heads  of  the  deepening  sense  of  the  value  and 
sacredness  of  the  person,  and  the  growing 


l68  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

recognition  of  Christ  as  the  supreme  person  of 
history.  These  may  be  discussed  much  more 
briefly,  not  because  they  are  less  important, 
but  because  for  our  generation  they  are  less  in 
dispute. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  INFLUENCE    OF   THE   DEEPENING    SENSE    OF  THE 
VALUE  AND   SACREDNESS   OF   THE  PERSON 

THE  greatest  outcome  of  an  advancing 
civilization  is  the  deepening  sense  of  the  value 
of  the  individual  person.  This  is  the  very 
flower  and  test  of  civilization.  If  it  be  true, 
as  was  previously  said,  that  the  sensitiveness  as 
to  the  personal  throughout  is  stronger  in  our 
age  than  in  any  preceding,  this  is  certain  in 
time  to  influence  theology  profoundly.  It 
affects  at  once  our  view  of  inspiration  and 
our  whole  doctrine  of  the  Spirit  in  his  hidden 
working,  and  throws  light  on  the  providence 
of  God,  on  the  meaning  of  prayer,  and  on  the 
obscurity  of  spiritual  truth,  as  well  as  affects 
the  tone  of  the  presentation  of  every  doctrine. 

I.     THE   UNITY   OF   THE  ETHICAL   LIFE   IN    LOVE 

Out  of  it  grows,  in  the  first  place,  the  obli- 
gation of  love,  and  of  a  love  that  not  only 
includes  all  persons,  but  that  is  such  a  love  as 
to  include  all  virtues.  It  means,  therefore,  a 

(169) 


170         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 

true  humanism,  but  no  sentimentalism,  for  it 
looks  only  to  the  complete  character.  This 
unity  of  the  ethical  life  in  love  is  the  first  clear 
step  in  an  ultimate  philosophy ;  it  is  the  most 
important  inheritance  left  us  by  Edwards ;  it  is 
soundly  biblical ;  and  it  is  constantly  gaining 
ground. 

But  it  is  still  fully  recognized  by  few  in 
theology.  The  old  dualism  of  justice  and 
love,  or  holiness  and  love,  still  works  confu- 
sion in  both  ethics  and  theology.  It  is  still  too 
largely  felt  that  there  is  division  in  God ;  that 
nature,  law,  and  grace  root  in  different  pur- 
poses, instead  of  all  working  to  the  same  end. 
Even  those  who  have  meant  wholly  to  accept 
the  all-embracing  character  of  love  have  sel- 
dom carried  it  fearlessly  out  for  God  and  for 
man,  at  all  times,  and  in  all  conditions.  But 
to  carry  entirely  through  this  principle  of  the 
unity  of  the  ethical  life  in  love  is  the  only 
logical  consequence  of  the  present  sense  of 
the  value  of  the  person.  "Not  that  we  love 
God,  but  that  he  loved  us."  "Every  one  that 
loveth  is  begotten  of  God  and  knoweth  God." 

And  it  is  the  very  sense  of  the  sacredness 
and  value  of  the  person  which  has  brought 
about  the  "reduction  of  the  area  of  Calvinism" 
of  which  Fisher  speaks.  It  is  simply  impos- 


THE  VALUE  OF  THE  PERSON          171 

sible  to  hold  to  arbitrary  decrees  in  the  old 
sense  in  the  face  of  this  conviction.  The  re- 
action, also,  by  elaborate  argument  and  labored 
exegesis,  against  the  universal  fatherhood  of 
God,  that  all  men  as  men  are  the  children 
of  God,  is  for  a  like  reason  simply  hopeless. 
That  distinctions  are  to  be  made  between  the 
various  uses  of  the  term  "  child  of  God,"  is 
obvious ;  but  the  conviction  of  the  universal 
fatherhood  of  God  has  grown  directly  out  of 
the  representation  of  God  by  Christ,  and  its 
connection  with  the  root  cannot  be  severed 
by  ever  so  elaborate  an  argument. 

II.    THE   RECOGNITION   OF   THE   WHOLE   MAN 

The  deepening  sense  of  the  worth  of  the 
person  means,  in  the  second  place,  the  recog- 
nition of  the  whole  man.  The  whole  man  is 
expressed  only  in  personal  relations.  The- 
ology accepts  heartily  psychology's  new  asser- 
tion of  the  unity  of  man,  and  seeks  to  take 
account  of  the  entire  spirit.  It  believes  with 
modern  philosophy  that  man  is  the  key  to  all 
problems,  but  only  the  whole  man.  If  I  do 
not  mistake  the  drift  of  modern  thinking,  it  is 
in  essential  agreement  with  Lotze's  main  con- 
tention, "that  the  nature  of  things  does  not 


172         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 

consist  in  thoughts,  and  that  thinking  is  not 
able  to  grasp  it;  yet  perhaps  the  whole  mind 
experiences  in  other  forms  of  its  action  and 
passion  the  essential  meaning  of  all  being 
and  action,  thought  subsequently  serving  it  as 
an  instrument,  by  which  that  which  is  thus 
experienced  is  brought  into  the  connection 
which  its  nature  requires,  and  is  experienced 
in  more  intensity  as  the  mind  is  master  of 
this  connection."1  This  statement,  if  closely 
pressed,  is  perhaps  open  to  the  objection  that 
it  seems  to  imply  that  reality  is  found  more 
through  feeling  and  action  than  through 
thought;  but  it  is  thoroughly  justified  so  far 
as  it  is  an  insistence,  as  it,  certainly,  mainly  is, 
that  man  is  more  than  intellect;  and,  there- 
fore, that  an  adequate  philosophy,  no  less  than 
an  adequate  theology,  must  take  account  of  all 
the  data — emotional  and  volitional  as  well  as 
intellectual;  aesthetic,  ethical,  and  religious, 
as  well  as  mechanical.  It  is  a  revolt  against  a 
misnamed  rationalism  that  knows  only  intel- 
lect, in  favor  of  a  genuine  rationalism  that 
knows  the  whole  man.  It  believes,  therefore, 
with  Armstrong's  putting  of  Seth's  position, 
that  "the  language  of  morality  or  religion,  the 
language  which  speaks  of  God  in  terms  of  our 

1  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  359,  360. 


THE    VALUE    OF    THE    PERSON  173 

own  highest  experience,  is  really  truer  than 
purely  metaphysical  language  concerning  God 
can  be.  '  Religion  and  higher  poetry  .  .  . 
carry  us  nearer  to  the  meaning  of  the  world 
than  the  formulae  of  an  abstract  metaphysics.' ' 

III.     THE    EXCLUSION   OF   THE   MECHANICAL 

In  the  third  place,  this  emphasis  on  the 
personal  means  for  theology  the  exclusion  of 
the  mechanical,  as  contrasted  with  the  spir- 
itual, everywhere.  It  is  noticeable  that  all 
agree  essentially  in  this  aim  of  excluding 
the  mechanical,  though  they  do  not  agree  as 
to  what  is  mechanical.  It  is  this  spirit  that 
makes  so  certain  that  the  attempt  to  press  the 
analogy  of  the  lower  evolution  is  wrong.  It 
is  this  that  leads  strong  conservatives  like 
Frank,  liberals  like  Pfleiderer,  and  Ritschlians 
like  Herrmann,  all  alike,  to  emphasize  the 
importance  of  the  inner  spiritual  evidence  to 
Christianity. 

This  movement  logically  requires  of  the- 
ology that  it  do  not  stop  until  it  interpret  all 
its  strictly  theological  problems  in  terms  of 
personal  relation.  The  relations  are  nowhere 
more  intensely  personal.  Theology  will  yet 
put  more  meaning  than  it  ever  has  put  into 


174  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

Christ's  declaration:  "This  is  life  eternal, 
that  they  should  know  thee,  the  only  true  God, 
and  him  whom  thou  didst  send,  even  Jesus 
Christ."  Deepening  acquaintance  with  God 
is  the  one  all-embracing  problem  of  the  Chris- 
tian life  ;  every  step  of  it  is  a  personal  relation; 
and  its  laws  are  the  laws  of  friendship. 

This  steady  and  certain  movement  away 
from  the  mechanical  to  the  personal  is  the 
inner  ground  of  dissatisfaction  with  all  natural, 
legal,  and  governmental  analogies,  applied, 
e.  g.,  to  the  doctrine  of  the  atonement.  The 
deep  significance  of  Dr.  Trumbull's  exhaustive 
survey  in  his  remarkable  books  on  The  'Blood 
Covenant  and  The  Threshold  Covenant  is  that 
he  traces  back  so  clearly  analogies  that  have 
been  otherwise  interpreted  to  the  closest  per- 
sonal relations.  And  yet  the  more  or  less 
mechanical  analogies  will  pass  away  as  only 
subordinately  helpful,  not  because  they  are 
attacked  from  without,  but  because,  in  the 
deepening  sense  of  the  intensely  personal 
nature  of  the  relations  involved,  the  basis  of 
their  appeal  will  have  broken  down  within. 
They  will  be  set  aside,  not  because  they  make 
too  much  of  the  work  of  Christ  in  his  life  or 
death,  but  because  they  make  too  little  of  it; 
because  they  leave  our  relation  to  him  still  too 


THE    VALUE    OF    THE     PERSON  175 

external  and  mechanical,  and  fail  to  bring  it 
home  to  us  as  a  moral  reality.  The  more  per- 
sonal view  believes  that  more  truly  and  really 
than  any  other  it  can  say:  "He  was  wounded 
for  our  transgressions ;  he  was  bruised  for  our 
iniquities ;  the  chastisement  of  our  peace  was 
upon  him;  and  with  his  stripes  we  are  healed." 
Indeed,  the  modern  view  of  the  fifty-third 
chapter  of  Isaiah,  starting  from  the  thought  of 
the  "suffering  servant  of  Jehovah,"  gives  as 
admirable  an  illustration  as  could  be  desired  of 
the  personal  and  spiritual  nature  of  the  atone- 
ment. 

This  interpretation  of  all  strictly  theological 
problems  in  terms  of  personal  relations  will 
bring  great  gain  to  theology  in  both  simplicity 
and  unity ;  it  will  make  theology  seem  to  many 
less  scientific,  because  it  will  have  dropped 
much  technical  language  which  has  no  longer 
any  proper  application ;  but  it  will  have  deep- 
ened in  the  same  proportion  the  perception 
of  the  real  spiritual  problems,  and  will  lean 
more  on  psychology  and  ethics,  and  less  on 
metaphysics  and  jurisprudence.  The  two 
closing  chapters  of  this  book  are  intended  to 
indicate  more  fully  some  of  the  lines  of 
such  a  reconstruction  of  theology  in  personal 
terms. 


176  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

IV.     THE    REJECTION  OF   SACRAMENTALISM 

The  denial  of  the  separation  between  sacred 
and  secular  things,  which  also  grows  out  of 
the  sense  of  the  sacredness  of  personality, 
looks  to  the  inevitable  rejection  of  all  sacra- 
mentalism  as  necessarily  mechanical.  It  knows 
no  sacred  things,  but  only  sacred  persons. 
The  sacredness  of  things  and  places  and  times 
is  wholly  borrowed  from  persons.  And  be- 
tween things  no  line  is  to  be  drawn  of  sacred 
and  secular.  "All  things  are  yours,"  and  all 
are  means  only,  but  all  may  be  made  means. 
There  is  to  be  war  on  the  worldly  spirit, 
but  not  on  the  world.  We  are  to  be  in  the 
world,  though  not  of  the  world. 

It  is  by  no  means  unimportant,  for  a  theol- 
ogy that  intends  to  keep  itself  free  from  mere 
mechanism  and  superstition,  to  see  clearly  the 
two  sides  of  the  truth  here :  that  the  most  holy 
things  are  so  only  because  they  minister  to 
the  spirit  of  a  living  person;  and  that  all 
things  are  to  be  so  used  as  to  give  this  min- 
istration. If  one  chooses  to  say  so,  this  is  to 
make  all  things  sacramental ;  but  it  is  the 
death  of  the  older  sacramentalism  which  lives 
on  the  assertion  of  the  sole  virtue  of  certain 
things.  The  older  sacramentalism  is  some- 


THE  VALUE  OF  THE  PERSON         177 

times  simple  superstition ;  and  sometimes  it 
owes  its  existence  to  the  seeking  of  the  relief 
found  in  it  as  a  form  of  absolute  abandon- 
ment of  self  —  including  reason  —  a  strong  in- 
stinct in  those  inclined  toward  an  authori- 
tative Catholicism.  Where  neither  of  these 
things  is  true,  sacramentalism  seems  to  be 
either  largely  aesthetic,  or  to  be  due  to  two 
tendencies:  to  an  association  of  ideas  —  the 
connection  of  the  sacred  thing  with  personal 
or  historical  memories,  and  to  the  apparent 
helpfulness  of  concrete  realities  as  channels 
of  spiritual  experience  —  the  psychological 
ground  of  idolatry.  Just  now  the  doctrine 
of  the  incarnation  is  being  widely  used,  es- 
pecially in  England,  to  spiritualize  sacramen- 
talism and  to  put  new  life  into  it;  but  it  is 
only  the  sound  of  the  word  —  incarnation  — 
not  its  true  meaning,  which  gives  the  view 
any  support.  The  revelation  of  God  in  Christ 
is  beyond  all  else  personal,  and  only  personal; 
it  is  no  mere  toying  with  the  flesh  of  hu- 
manity. So,  too,  the  church  is  no  institu- 
tion, but,  as  Fairbairn  says,  "the  church  is 
the  people  of  God ;  wherever  they  are  he  is, 
and  the  church  through  him  in  them."1 

lOp.  «'/.,  p.  530. 


1 78  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

V.    THE   QUICKENING  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIENCE 

The  intense  quickening  of  the  social  con- 
science, too,  which  also  is  born  of  the  sense 
of  the  worth  of  the  person,  cannot  help 
deepening  our  insight  into  another  side  of 
biblical  and  Christian  teaching.  This  is  for 
theology  simply  the  clear  recognition  of  the 
large  place  given  to  the  kingdom  of  God 
in  the  teaching  of  Christ.  The  astonish- 
ment is  that,  even  apart  from  the  explicit 
teaching  as  to  the  kingdom,  with  Christ's 
statement  of  the  great  commandment  before 
men,  any  other  view  could  have  been  held. 
Flight  from  the  world  and  flight  from  hu- 
man relations  were  no  legitimate  growth 
from  the  spirit  of  Christ.  In  any  case,  it 
would  seem  that  we  can  never  again  forget 
that  "we  are  members  one  of  another." 

And  few  principles  have  so  many  vital 
applications  in  theology.  As  certain  as  that 
the  great  commandment  is  love,  and  that 
the  great  means  to  character  is  association, 
so  certain  is  it  that  we  are  necessary  one  to 
another.  As  certain  as  that  each  has  his 
own  individual  outlook  on  the  divine,  so 
certain  is  it  that  we  need  to  share  each 
other's  visions.  The  principle  sheds  its  light 


THE  VALUE  OF  THE  PERSON  179 

on  the  problem  of  evil,  on  the  question  of 
the  divine  providence,  and  on  the  meaning 
of  intercessory  prayer,  and  on  many  another 
dark  place  in  our  thinking.  Only  through 
it  is  the  full  greatness  of  the  human  spirit 
seen,  and  the  largeness  of  the  life  open  to 
it,  for  it  implies  the  divine  friendship  as 
well.  All  this  is  true,  and  much  more. 

But  we  must  not  make  here  another  false 
application  of  the  analogy  of  the  organism. 
In  truth,  it  needs  to  be  said  with  emphasis 
that  we  understand  better  what  we  mean  by 
personal  relations  and  by  friendship,  than 
we  do  what  we  mean  by  oiganic  relations 
and  organism.  The  latter  are  more  easily 
imaged,  but  the  real  final  law  of  the  rela- 
tions we  understand  much  less  than  the  per- 
sonal. It  is  well  to  know  exactly  in  what 
sense  the  isolated  individual  is  an  abstrac- 
tion, as  is  so  frequently  said  nowadays.  In 
two  senses :  first,  that  every  individual  is  so 
constituted  that  at  the  beginning  for  very 
existence,  and  all  along  for  his  own  develop- 
ment and  good,  he  requires  relations  with 
others;  and  secondly,  that  by  the  time  he 
has  reached  capacity  for  independent  action, 
he  is  already  under  multiplied  obligations  to 
others  near  and  remote,  from  which  he  can- 


ISO         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 

not  rightfully  simply  withdraw.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  to  create  an  obvious  abstraction, 
however  much  we  deceive  ourselves  by  the 
analogy,  to  make  these  facts  of  relations  of 
individuals  a  ground  for  affirming  the  exist- 
ence of  a  being — society  or  the  state  —  which 
is  supposed  to  have  some  meaning  and  value 
in  and  of  itself,  apart  from  the  welfare  of 
individuals.  There  is  no  value  or  happiness 
finally  except  in  the  individual  spirit.  It  is 
only  playing  with  the  ambiguity  of  the  word 
to  say  that  the  social  conscience  is  a  revolt 
from  individualism.  Individualism,  in  the 
sense  of  selfishness?  Yes.  From  a  true  indi- 
vidualism? No.  Indeed,  to  press,  as  many 
are  now  doing,  the  analogy  of  the  organism, 
is  really  to  repudiate  that  out  of  which  the 
whole  development  of  the  social  conscience 
has  come  —  the  sense  of  the  value  of  the 
individual  person. 


VI.   THE   INCREASING  EMPHASIS   UPON   THE 
ETHICAL 

Every  one  of  the  foregoing  considerations 
drawn  from  emphasis  on  the  personal  im- 
plies, also,  an  increasing  emphasis  on  the 
ethical,  which  affects  theology  at  every  point. 


THE    VALUE    OF    THE     PERSON  l8l 

The  very  definition  of  religion  is  changed. 
Religion  is  clearly  seen  to  be  no  device  for 
avoiding  the  necessity  of  character,  no  sub- 
stitute for  it,  but  the  one  truest  way  to  char- 
acter,— a  relation  which  involves  character  in 
its  very  existence.  The  separation  of  the 
ethical  and  religious  is  becoming  impossible. 
The  reality  of  the  moral  life  of  man  seems 
to  us  now  one  of  the  main  foundations  of  a 
religious  view.  And  we  can  conceive  no 
salvation  that  does  not  include  character. 
We  believe  that  the  ethical  is  always  in- 
volved in  every  genuine  religious  experi- 
ence. As  Herrmann  puts  it:  "Neither  in 
what  is  opposed  to  duty,  nor  in  what  is 
indifferent  to  it,  can  we  meet  with  God,  or 
do  we  desire  to  do  so."1 

We  are  compelled,  therefore,  to  a  reinter- 
pretation  of  the  Reformation  formula.  We 
see  with  Paul  in  faith  a  real  personal  rela- 
tion, but  one  that  is  the  germ  of  real  right- 
eousness. To  deny  all  worth  to  faith,  any 
activity  on  the  part  of  man,  is  simply  to 
deny  that  that  has  taken  place  which  it  is 
the  whole  aim  of  redemption  to  bring  about 
—  the  voluntary  choosing  to  be  a  child  of 
God,  of  like  character  with  him.  A  thor- 

lThe  Communion  of  the  Christian  with  God,  p.  106. 


1 82  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

oughly  ethical  conception  of  salvation  affects 
theological  statements  in  unlooked-for  ways, 
and  to  an  extent  impossible  even  to  indicate. 
It  is  no  denial  of  a  real  forgiveness  of  sins, 
but  it  makes  sin  not  less  but  more  serious. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  puts  an  absolute  bar 
to  the  older  Calvinism  of  salvation  by  divine 
decree,  supposing  that  that  made  conceivable 
the  idea  of  character  at  all.  The  atonement, 
too,  can  get  its  full  meaning  only  as  it  is 
conceived  as  ethical  throughout. 

VII.    THE   PRACTICAL   TEST   OF    DOCTRINE 

And,  if  theology  accepts  the  guidance  not 
only  of  ethics  but  also  of  psychology  with 
what  Paulsen  calls  its  "voluntaristic  trend,"  it 
must  be  practical,  having  a  clear  outlook  upon 
action.  Certainly  in  religion,  which  professes 
to  give  principles  for  life — a  method  of  living — 
if  anywhere,  judgment  by  consequences  ought 
to  apply,  and  theology  must  not  shrink  from 
this  test.  Moreover,  all  doctrine  should  be 
originally  only  the  thought  expression  of  ex- 
perience or  its  supposed  implications,  and 
should  have,  therefore,  a  solely  practical 
source ;  and  this  ought  to  make  it  certain  that 
it  will  have  a  practical  use.  All  doctrine  must 


THE    VALUE     OF    THE     PERSON  183 

have  meaning  for  life.  It  must  be  seen  to 
bear  on  life ;  something  must  follow  from  it 
for  attitude  and  conduct.  This  is  the  very 
ground  of  distinction  between  moral  and  spirit- 
ual truth  and  other  truth.  The  former  is  al- 
ways an  appeal  to  character.  If  it  is  not  so,  we 
may  be  very  sure  it  is  not  correctly  stated. 
The  New  England  theologians,  therefore, 
rightly  sought  a  theology  that  could  be 
preached.  So  far  as  theology  is  a  science  of 
practical  religion,  the  test  is  genuine  and 
needed,  but  it  would  cut  severely  much  that 
goes  under  the  name  of  theology,  even  so 
defined.  For  it  can  hardly  be  denied  that 
there  has  been  much  in  theology  which 
either  had  no  religious  significance,  or  but 
awkwardly  expressed  this  religious  significance 
as  a  merely  external  attachment  to  the  doc- 
trinal statement. 

And  a  practical  theology  must  be  a  mission- 
ary theology.  Here  is  a  practical  outworking 
of  Christian  experience  that  theology  must 
express.  The  present  conditions,  moreover, 
are  all  the  time  in  intolerable  contradiction 
with  the  Christian  assertion  of  what  ought  to 
be,  and  with  Christ's  sole  purpose  in  coming 
to  men.  Hence  the  more  close  theology 
comes  to  life,  and  the  more  vital  it  keeps  its 


184  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

conceptions  and  its  contact  with  Christ,  the 
more  certainly  missionary  it  will  be.  That 
theology  will  be  missionary  that  has  so  vital  a 
conception  of  the  relation  to  God  that  it  sees, 
on  the  one  hand,  the  infinite  richness  of  the 
life  of  the  child  of  God,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  really  enters  into  God's  thought  of  sin 
and  its  loss,  and  into  his  love  for  men ;  that 
sees  the  sin  of  men  in  the  light  of  the  love  and 
the  holiness  of  God  as  a  perpetual  pain  to 
God;  that  enters,  therefore,  into  the  double 
sympathy  of  Christ  with  God  and  with  man, 
bearing  in  its  measure  the  sin  of  the  world ; 
and  that,  consequently,  must  go  to  men  with 
the  same  glad  tidings  and  with  the  same  seek- 
ing suffering  love  with  which  Christ  came. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  RECOGNITION  OF  CHRIST  AS 
THE  SUPREME  PERSON  OF  HISTORY 

ALL  these  deeper  moral  convictions  of  our 
time,  which  we  have  been  considering  in  the 
last  chapter,  lead  naturally  to  the  recognition 
of  Christ  as  the  supreme  person,  and  therefore 
the  supreme  fact,  of  history  and  the  supreme 
revelation  of  God ;  and  this  recognition  in  turn 
strengthens  all  the  other  convictions.  It  might 
be  a  truer  thing  to  say  that  all  these  deepening 
convictions  have  really  grown  out  of  the  per- 
meating influence  of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  Cer- 
tainly it  is  true  that  it  was  only  the  teaching  of 
Christ  that  gave  the  deepest  conception  of  the 
value  of  the  person,  as  the  child  of  God,  and 
made  that  thought  a  living  power. 

This  growing  convergence  of  the  thought  of 
the  world  toward  Christ  is  far  the  greatest  fact 
of  our  time.  The  whole  inductive  temper  in 
science,  in  philosophy,  and  in  history  itself  is 
bound  to  bring  into  increasing  prominence 
the  figure  of  Christ.  No  adequate  philosophy, 
certainly,  can  ignore  this  supreme  person  and 


1 86  RECONSTRUCTION     IN     THEOLOGY 

therefore  the  supreme  fact  of  the  world. 
Philosophy  rightly  calls  the  present  the  age 
of  man,  but  it  is  becoming  increasingly  clear, 
as  the  deep  old  proverb  has  it,  that  "the  secret 
of  man  is  the  secret  of  Messiah,"  and  so  the 
age  of  man  is  the  age  of  Christ.  Evolution, 
too,  needs  the  distinctively  Christian  stage  and 
the  resurrected  Christ  as  the  only  rational 
justification  of  the  age-long  process  which  has 
preceded.  When  psychology,  also,  asks  for 
the  supreme  conditions  and  means  to  character 
and  happiness,  it  reaches  precisely  those  which 
are  found  in  their  perfection  only  in  Christ 
and  his  teaching.  At  the  end  of  every  path, 
in  fact,  there  looms  up  before  us  this  one 
great  towering  figure. 

The  simple  truth  is  that  we  stand  face  to 
face  with  the  historical  Christ,  as  it  has  been 
said,  "in  a  sense  and  to  a  degree  unknown  to 
the  church  since  the  apostolic  age."  It  is  a 
most  significant  fact  that  every  single  great  life 
of  Christ  since  the  Gospels  is  the  product  of 
the  last  sixty-five  years.  Every  ray  of  light 
— historical,  critical,  philosophic,  ethical,  relig- 
ious—  has  been  concentrated  upon  him.  No 
such  study  was  ever  given  to  any  theme.  It 
would  be  criminal  thoughtlessness  that  could 
make  that  fact  without  effect  in  theology. 


CHRIST    THE    SUPREME    PERSON    OF    HISTORY         187 

Better  to  know  Christ  is,  certainly,  to  be  able 
to  speak  more  adequately  about  him.  And  it 
would  be  our  shame,  not  the  glory  of  the 
fathers,  if  in  spite  of  the  deepening  knowl- 
edge of  Christ,  we  were  content  to  speak 
precisely  as  they  spoke.  We  would  much 
better  try  to  speak  as  we  believe  they  would 
speak  now.  The  very  movement  itself  makes 
it  certain,  however,  that  this  is  not  to  make 
Christ  less,  but  more. 

I.     CHRIST    AS   THE   SUPREME    REVELATION   OF   GOD 

The  recovery  of  the  historical  Christ,  this 
growing  recognition  of  his  supremacy,  means 
for  theology,  then,  in  the  first  place,  that  it 
accepts  Christ  in  truth  as  the  supreme  reve- 
lation of  God,  its  one  great  source  of  the 
knowledge  of  God's  character  and  purpose. 
With,  this  fact  it  is  in  dead  earnest.  It  does 
not  deny  that  there  are  other  sources,  but  it 
holds  them  to  be  distinctly  subordinate.  Christ 
and  only  Christ  is  adequate  to  give  the  Chris- 
tian conception  of  God.  It  welcomes  gladly 
all  other  light,  and  it  knows  that  the  mind 
must  do  its  best  to  bring  into  unity  all  its 
possessions ;  but  natural  theology  is  for  it  sup- 
plementary rather  than  basic,  subordinate  to 


1 88  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

Christ,  not  coordinate  with  him.  It  seeks 
with  all  earnestness  approximation  to  Christ's 
theology.  It  erects  no  altar  to  an  unknown 
God ;  it  takes  refuge  in  neither  scholasticism 
nor  mysticism.  It  knows  one  God,  the  God 
revealed  in  Christ,  and  it  accepts  with  con- 
fidence the  affirmation  of  Christ:  "He  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father ;  how  say- 
est  thou,  show  us  the  Father?" 

The  cry  "Back  to  Christ"  means  for  the- 
ology that  Christ  is  really  supreme,  in  the 
Bible  and  out  of  it.  And  it  believes  that  any 
reaction  against  the  cry,  so  interpreted,  is 
doomed  to  failure.  Doubtless,  theology  must 
recognize  the  indispensable  value  of  the  apos- 
tolic testimony  to  Christ,  but  it  must  reserve 
the  right — and  it  is  vain  to  deny  it — by  legiti- 
mate historical  criticism  to  work  back  from 
the  reflection  of  Christ  to  the  Christ  reflected. 
That  Christ  is  Lord,  ought  to  be  no  divisive 
cry  for  any  disciple  of  Christ. 

II.     GOD,    AS    FATHER,    THE   RULING   CONCEPTION 
IN   THEOLOGY 

And  of  the  character  of  the  God  who  reveals 
himself  in  Christ  theology  can  have  no  doubt. 
It  sees  God  in  Christ;  it  knows  and  seeks  no 


CHRIST     THE     SUPREME     PERSON    OF    HISTORY       1 89 

better  name  for  him  than  Christ's  own  con- 
stantly repeated  name,  Father.  And  when  it 
seeks  to  interpret  that  name  by  Christ's  own 
spirit  in  life  and  death,  it  seems  for  the  first 
time  really  to  know  what  love  and  what  sin 
are.  God  is  no  longer  onlooker,  nor  even 
sovereign  merely ;  but  Father,  holy  and  loving, 
who  because  he  hates  sin  and  knows  its  awful- 
ness,  and  yet  loves  with  surpassing  love  his 
child,  suffers  in  the  sin  of  his  child.  It  is  no 
sentimentalism.  The  more  the  Father  loves 
the  child,  the  more  he  hates  the  sin  of  the 
child  and  must  use  every  means  to  put  the  sin 
away.  On  the  other  hand,  the  revelation  of 
the  Father  alone  brings  his  sin  adequately  to 
the  man  himself.  It  puts  his  sin  in  the  light 
of  the  suffering  love  of  God,  of  what  it  costs 
the  Father's  heart,  and  brings  home  so  the 
shame  of  it  and  the  guilt  of  it  as  no  punish- 
ment could  possibly  do.  Christ's  conception 
of  God  as  Father,  as  Fairbairn  justly  says, 
must  be  taken  as  the  really  ruling  conception, 
determining  all  else  in  theology.  That  Christ's 
conception  of  God  as  Father  should  really 
rule  in  theology,  means  more  for  theology 
than  appears  at  once.  Like  the  deepening 
sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the  person, 
considered  in  the  last  chapter,  it  can  hardly 


IQO  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

fail  to  lead  to  a  reconstruction  of  theology  in 
strict  terms  of  personal  relation. 


III.     EMPHASIS    ON   THE   HUMANITY   OF   CHRIST 

Historical  criticism  has  brought  us  also  into 
the  very  presence  of  the  man  Jesus,  and  has 
renewed  for  us,  therefore,  the  gospel's  own 
emphasis  on  the  humanity  of  Christ,  almost 
forgotten  by  the  church  in  spite  of  both 
Gospels  and  creeds.  But  it  is  most  significant 
that  it  is  directly  through  this  study  of  the 
humanity  of  Jesus  that  his  lordship  and  divinity 
have  become  so  plain.  It  is  no  Unitarian  drift 
which  the  age  has  disclosed,  and  yet  it  accepts 
the  emphasis  on  Christ's  humanity.  The  re- 
ligious need  of  the  humanity  of  Christ,  we 
should  not  forget,  is  very  great.  Otherwise 
his  whole  life  is  unreal,  and  has  no  true  rela- 
tion to  our  life,  and  he  could  give  to  us  no 
perfect  revelation  of  the  perfect  filial  relation 
to  God — no  true  revelation  of  man.  But  more 
than  this  is  true.  It  is  supremely  in  the 
character  of  Christ  that  God  stands  fully  re- 
vealed, and  this  character  must  be  real — the 
real  character  of  the  man  Jesus.  His  true 
humanity  is,  therefore,  essential  to  the  revela- 
tion of  his  divinity  as  well — to  any  true  revela- 


CHRIST     THE     SUPREME     PERSON    OF    HISTORY       IQI 

tion  of  God.  Christ's  humanity  and  divinity 
stand  thus  in  closest  relations.  We  find  in 
Christ,  not  God  and  man,  but  God  revealed 
because  true  man. 


IV.     THE    QUESTION    OF   A    SOCIAL   TRINITY 

But  there  is  one  inference  widely  drawn 
from  this  newly  awakened  belief  in  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  against  which,  it  seems  to  the  writer, 
earnest  and  honest  protest  should  be  made. 
No  age  has  had  a  more  thorough  and  intel- 
ligent conviction  of  the  lordship  and  divinity 
of  Christ  than  ours.  This  conviction  is  the 
deepest  and  most  inspiring  influence  in  the- 
ology to-day ;  but  this  conviction  is  grounded 
on  straightforward  historical  study  of  the 
character  of  Christ,  not  on  metaphysical  spec- 
ulation. It  can  be  no  service  to  the  church, 
it  would  seem,  under  this  fresh  and  independ- 
ent conviction  to  react  toward  a  really  meta- 
physical tritheism,  affirming  social  relations 
and  love  within  the  Godhead,  in  the  immanent 
Trinity.  The  attempt  has  been  widely  ap- 
proved, but  I  cannot  doubt  that,  so  far  as  it 
becomes  a  living  faith,  it  means  tritheism  pure 
and  simple,  and  will  surely  bring  its  own 
punishment.  It  seems  probable  that  this  at- 


192  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

tempt  has  come  from  a  sincere  desire  to  give 
Christ  his  true  glory.  But  it  has  virtually  pro- 
ceeded, nevertheless,  upon  the  wholly  un- 
warranted assumption  that  the  relations  of 
Christ  to  God,  whether  on  earth  or  in  his 
preexistence  or  in  his  exaltation,  were  to  be 
transferred  forthwith  to  the  relations  of  the 
immanent  Trinity  —  to  the  inner  relations  of 
the  very  being  of  God  himself. 

This,  at  least,  is  true :  nothing  calls  for 
more  absolute  and  complete  personality  than 
love  and  social  relations.  To  affirm  social  rela- 
tions, therefore,  in  the  Godhead  is  to  assert 
absolute  tritheism.  And  no  possible  manipu- 
lation of  the  terms  can  avoid  it.  The  analysis 
of  self-consciousness,  also,  taken  from  Hegel, 
it  seems  to  the  writer — to  put  it  flatly  —  helps 
not  at  all  to  a  real  trinity  and  proves  nothing. 
It  is  far  better  that  we  should  admit  that  we 
simply  do  not  understand  the  eternal  Trinity, 
than  that,  by  explanations  which  do  not  ex- 
plain, we  should  be  driven  to  ascribe  three 
persons  to  God  in  the  only  sense  in  which  we 
can  understand  person,  and  not  be  able  to  say 
that  God  is  one  person  in  any  sense  we  can 
understand.  This  new  tritheism  seems  to  me 
far  less  defensible  than  even  the  oldest  credal 
statements  of  the  Trinity,  for  those  were  at 


CHRIST    THE     SUPREME     PERSON    OF    HISTORY       193 

least  scrupulously  careful  to  insist  that  the  dis- 
tinctions in  the  Godhead  were  not  personal, 
but  that  God  was  in  truth  one. 

We  are  likely  to  find  the  biblical  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity  more  satisfying  both  intellec- 
tually and  religiously  than  any  later  abstractly 
wrought  out  statements.  We  believe  in  one 
God,  our  Father,  concretely  and  supremely 
revealed  and  brought  nigh  with  absolute  and 
abiding  assurance  in  Christ,  and  making  him- 
self known  in  the  hearts  of  all  who  will  receive 
him,  in  the  most  intimate,  constant,  and 
powerful,  but  not  obtrusive,  friendship  pos- 
sible to  man,  giving  thus  the  supreme  condi- 
tions of  both  character  and  happiness.  This  is 
the  great  practical  New  Testament  confession 
of  faith,  contained  both  in  the  apostolic  bene- 
diction and  in  the  baptismal  formula. 

Moreover,  the  religious  need  of  the  strict 
unity  of  God  is  very  great.  I  want  to  know 
that  God  himself,  the  infinite  source  of  all, 
is  my  Father;  that  he,  not  some  second 
being,  loves  me.  And  this  is  the  very  signif- 
icance of  Christ  that  God  is  in  him,  speaks 
and  works  through  him.  This  seems  to  be 
Christ's  constant  testimony,  and  the  one  view 
that  fairly  includes  both  sides  of  John's  rep- 
resentation of  him.  It  is  the  great  meaning 


IQ4  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

of  Christ  that  he  reveals  God  himself,  that  we 
may  see  God's  love  in  his  love.  Less  than 
this  seems  still  to  leave  us  far  from  the  gospel, 
as  both  Athanasius  and  Luther  felt,  and  un- 
derestimates the  significance  of  Christ.  "He 
that  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

The  Unitarian  movement  at  the  time  of 
its  origin,  it  can  hardly  be  denied,  had  a  real 
historical  justification.  There  was  needed  a 
protest  against  a  virtual  tritheism ;  neverthe- 
less, Unitarianism  takes  the  wrong  road  to  a 
true  goal.  Perhaps  the  needed  contrast  may 
be  put  thus :  Unitarianism  emphasizes  the 
humanity  of  Christ  to  preserve  the  unity  of 
God ;  the  true  view  emphasizes  the  divinity 
of  Christ  to  preserve  the  unity. 

V.    THE  PRACTICAL  LORDSHIP  OF  CHRIST 

But  it  is  the  greatest  glory  of  this  new 
sense  of  the  historical  Christ  that,  whether 
we  are  able  adequately  or  in  agreement  to 
phrase  his  relation  to  us  or  to  God,  the  fact 
stands  out  with  increasing  clearness  for  all 
men,  that  simply  coming  into  his  presence  we 
find  the  key  to  the  meaning  of  life,  we  find 
ourselves,  we  find  God.  Not  apologetically, 
therefore,  not  with  misgiving,  but  in  glad  con- 


CHRIST     THE     SUPREME     PERSON    OF    HISTORY       IQ5 

fidence,  we  own  him  Lord.  In  our  intellec- 
tual formulations  of  his  person  we  may  not 
satisfy  one  another.  But  "no  man  can  say 
Jesus  is  Lord,  but  in  the  Holy  Spirit."  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  mistake,  for  example,  the 
note  of  personal  confession  and  joy  in  these 
words  of  Adolf  Harnack:  "When  God  and 
everything  that  is  sacred  threaten  to  disappear 
in  darkness,  or  our  doom  is  pronounced;  when 
the  mighty  forces  of  inexorable  nature  seem 
to  overwhelm  us,  and  the  bounds  of  good  and 
evil  to  dissolve ;  when,  weak  and  weary,  we 
despair  of  finding  God  at  all  in  this  dismal 
world — it  is  then  that  the  personality  of  Christ 
may  save  us."1  And  to  the  same  import, 
Herrmann  says  even  more  convincingly:  "The 
child-like  spirit  can  only  arise  within  us  when 
our  experience  is  the  same  as  a  child's :  in 
other  words,  when  we  meet  with  a  personal 
life  which  compels  us  to  trust  it  without 
reserve.  Only  the  person  of  Jesus  can  arouse 
such  trust  in  a  man  who  has  awakened  to 
moral  self-consciousness.  If  such  a  man  sur- 
renders himself  to  anything  or  any  one  else, 
he  throws  away  not  only  his  trust  but  him- 
self."2 

1  Christianity  and  History,  p.  47. 

*  The  Communion  of  the  Christian  with  God,  p.  97. 


1 96  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

When  theology  tries  now  honestly  to  take 
account  of  these  great  convictions  of  our  own 
age,  it  only  attempts  more  adequately  to  con- 
ceive the  great  abiding  truths  of  Christianity 
and  make  them  real  to  this  generation.  It 
seeks  to  be  more  Christian — closer  to  the  very 
spirit  and  teaching  of  Christ,  its  supreme 
authority ;  more  personal  and  reverent  of 
personality — insisting  on  the  whole  man  and 
the  personal  relations  which  are  essential  in 
every  moral  and  spiritual  problem ;  more 
biblical — with  unfaltering  faith  in  the  histori- 
cal revelation  of  God,  and  owning  the  price- 
less value  of  the  reflections  of  Christ  in  his 
own  generation,  it  means  to  give  a  weight  to 
biblical  statements  in  theology  that  has  not 
yet  been  given;  more  historical — for  it  wishes 
humbly  to  know  the  actual  way  that  God  has 
taken,  not  its  own  imaginings;  more  practical 
— for  it  looks  only  to  life,  the  highest  life ; 
more  ethical — for  it  knows  that  to  be  a  child 
of  God  is  to  be  of  like  character  with  God ; 
more  social — for  it  remembers  the  great  com- 
mandment: Christian,  personal,  biblical,  his- 
torical, practical,  ethical,  social,  and,  once 
again  and  supremely,  Christian.  w  Other 
foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  which 
is  laid,  which  is  Jesus  Christ."  "And  this 


CHRIST   THE    SUPREME    PERSON   OF   HISTORY         1 97 

is  life  eternal,  that  they  should  know  thee,  the 
only  true  God,  and  him  whom  thou  didst 
send,  even  Jesus  Christ." 

But  all  these  modern  demands  on  the- 
ology, growing  chiefly  out  of  both  the  influ- 
ence of  the  deepening  sense  of  the  value  and 
sacredness  of  the  person,  and  the  influence 
of  the  recognition  of  Christ  as  the  supreme 
person  of  history,  naturally  lead  us  on  to  the 
thought  of  the  reconstruction  of  theology  in 
terms  of  personal  relation.  For  only  such  a 
reconstruction  can  fairly  meet  any  one  of 
these  demands,  or  be  commensurate  with  the 
complexity  and  significance  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  facts  involved.  And  the  other  influ- 
ences, as  well,  of  our  time  which  are  legiti- 
mately affecting  theology  not  only  do  not 
preclude,  but  seem  distinctly  to  invite,  such 
a  restatement  in  personal  terms.  Certainly, 
if  theology  is  to  be  truly  scientific,  it  must 
recognize  its  facts  for  what  they  are,  and  so 
see  their  peculiarly  personal  nature,  and,  con- 
sequently, count  all  statements,  that  even 
tacitly  ignore  this,  to  be  quite  inadequate. 
So,  too,  our  discussion  of  miracles  and  of 
evolution  tended  to  emphasize  the  fact  and 
significance  of  the  personal  stage  of  the  evo- 
lution reached  in  man.  And  it  is  perhaps 


1 98  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  chief  gain  of  the  historical  and  literary 
criticism  of  the  Bible,  that  it  has  made  the 
Bible  so  much  more  personal,  by  bringing 
out  into  clear  light  the  personal  revelation  of 
the  personal  God  through  persons. 

Now,  in  thinking  of  such  a  reconstruction 
of  theology  in  personal  terms,  we  need  first 
to  see  that  the  religious  life  itself  is  best  con- 
ceived as  a  personal  relation ;  and  then  to  dis- 
cern more  definitely,  than  has  been  here  indi- 
cated, why  we  are  compelled  to  a  restatement 
of  theology  in  personal  terms,  and  to  illustrate 
what  such  a  restatement  would  mean.  Only 
an  illustration,  of  course,  is  possible ;  for  a 
complete  restatement  would  require  the  set- 
ting forth  of  an  entire  theology;  and  it  is  the 
purpose  of  this  book  rather  to  clear  the 
ground  for  such  a  reconstructed  theology, 
than  to  write  it. 


THE  RESULTING  RECONSTRUCTION 
IN  THEOLOGY 

CHAPTER   XI 
RELIGION  AS  A  PERSONAL  RELATION 

OUR  thinking  cannot  be  without  its  finally 
profound  reaction  on  our  living.  False  con- 
ceptions of  the  religious  life,  then,  must  injure 
the  life  itself ;  true  conceptions,  on  the  other 
hand,  must  prove  of  positive  help  against  mis- 
takes and  discouragement.  Theology,  too,  is 
only  a  thoughtful  and  unified  expression  of 
what  religion  means  to  us.  The  conception 
of  religion,  therefore,  will  be  of  determining 
significance  for  theology  also.  And  reasonable 
agreement  in  the  conception  of  religion  would 
do  more  than  anything  else  to  bring  unity  into 
our  theologies.  The  needs,  then,  of  both  our 
religious  living  and  our  religious  thinking 
demand  the  utmost  care  in  our  conception  of 
religion — the  closest  possible  approximation  to 
Christ's  thought  here. 

All  Christians  would  doubtless  agree  that 


2OO  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

the  ideal  of  religion  for  the  individual  would 
be  to  come  into  such  ethical  and  spiritual  rela- 
tions to  God  as  those  in  which  Christ  stood. 
Now  whatever  else  was  true  of  this  relation, 
it  was,  first  and  foremost,  a  personal  relation. 
And  this  commonplace  —  religion,  a  personal, 
filial  relation  to  God  in  Christ — carefully 
heeded,  has  consequences  of  the  highest  im- 
portance for  both  our  Christian  life  and 
thought.  In  truth,  the  writer  believes  there  is 
no  greater  need,  in  religious  living  and  the- 
ological thinking  to-day,  than  a  thorough-going 
and  consistent  hold  on  Christ's  thought  of  religion 
as  a  personal  relation  to  God.  Many  practical 
and  theoretical  difficulties  that  have  grown  up 
in  the  course  of  the  Christian  centuries  yield 
readily  to  this  simple  solvent.  More  often 
than  otherwise  we  have  originally  created  our 
difficulties  by  substituting,  for  the  actual  con- 
crete personal  relations,  abstract  or  mechanical 
conceptions  of  some  sort. 

But  this  conception  of  the  Christian  life  as 
a  deepening  friendship  with  God  is  so  impor- 
tant and  so  enlightening  when  accurately 
grasped  that  it  is  the  more  necessary  that 
certain  points  be  made  clear,  that  we  may 
guard  against  extravagant  and  misleading  state- 
ments. 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  2OI 

I.     GUARDING  THE   CONCEPTION 

In  the  first  place,  the  God  with  whom  we 
come  into  personal  relation  is  not  the  God  of 
mere  religious  fancy  or  mystical  experience, 
nor  the  God  of  philosophical  speculation,  but 
the  God  revealed  concretely,  unmistakably,  in 
the  ethical  and  spiritual  personality  of  Jesus 
Christ.  He  alone  is  the  supreme  and  reli- 
giously adequate  revelation  of  God.  There  are 
other  partial  manifestations  of  God  without 
and  within,  but  only  he  who  has  seen  Christ 
has  adequately  seen  the  Father.  The  Christian 
seeks  personal  relation  with  God  in  Christ. 
Other  notions  of  God  must  be  adjusted  to  this 
clear  revelation  in  Christ,  not  this  to  other 
notions.  Where  this  is  not  kept  clear,  some 
mystical  experience  of  our  own  may  be 
exalted,  out  of  all  due  proportion,  into  an 
authority  that  is  supposed  not  only  to  make  us 
quite  independent  of  our  brethren,  but  even 
at  the  height  of  our  raptures  to  enable  us  to 
do  without  Christ. 

Moreover,  when  we  speak  of  a  personal 
relation  to  God,  we  of  course  do  not  mean 
that  we  can  give  exactly  the  same  kind  of 
reality  to  it  as  to  our  relations  to  other  per- 
sons who  are  to  us  compelling  sensuous 


2O2  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

facts.  And  yet  the  unreality  of  which  men 
sometimes  complain  in  their  relation  to  God 
is  probably  due,  more  often  than  they  think, 
to  the  simple  lack  of  some  sensuous  presen- 
tation. But  even  in  our  relation  to  other 
men,  we  should  remember,  we  are  conscious 
that  the  spiritual  relation  in  which  we  stand 
to  them  is  more  and  other  than  the  mere 
fact  that  they  are  presented  to  us  in  bodies 
which  affect  our  senses.  And  whatever  their 
sense  manifestations  —  gesture,  facial  expres- 
sion, glance  of  eye,  or  speech  —  all  have  to 
be  spiritually  interpreted  by  us,  often  uncer- 
tainly enough,  before  they  can  mean  any- 
thing for  our  spiritual  relation  to  these  other 
persons.  Our  relation  to  God,  then,  is  not  less 
real  and  personal,  because  it  is  not  sensuous. 

Nor,  in  affirming  that  religion  is  a  present 
relation  to  God,  are  we  unwarrantedly  assert- 
ing such  a  sense  of  the  immediate  presence 
of  God  in  Christ  as  we  suppose  belongs  to 
the  future  life.  Even  Paul,  with  all  the  viv- 
idness of  his  religious  experience  and  lan- 
guage, speaks  of  "the  desire  to  depart  and 
be  with  Christ,  for  it  is  very  far  better."  The 
Christian  looks  for  a  far  more  glorious  mani- 
festation of  God  in  Christ,  in  the  future  life, 
than  here  he  can  attain. 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  2O3 

Nor,  when  we  speak  of  the  possibility  of 
real  friendship  with  God,  are  we  asserting  a 
relation  of  familiar  equality  with  God.  Any 
true  human  friendship,  we  find,  shows  itself  in 
marked  reverence  for  the  personality  of  the 
other.  The  divine  friendship  is  not  less  real, 
then,  that  it  implies  devout  reverence  and 
godly  fear — a  clear  sense  of  the  moral  rebuke 
of  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  as  well  as 
of  the  manifestation  of  his  grace.  ^Esthetic  ad- 
miration for  Christ  is  no  true  love  for  Christ. 

Perhaps  one  might  say  with  Kaftan,1  that 
our  present  personal  relation  to  God  in 
Christ,  in  the  grounds  of  its  certainty,  is 
more  like  our  relation  to  the  moral  de- 
mands, the  certainty  and  power  of  which 
depend  on  one's  own  inner  life.  Here  are 
realities  which  are  no  sense-facts,  and  yet 
which  are  among  our  primal  certainties, 
though  the  clearness  and  power  of  our  vision 
of  them  are  affected  by  the  prevailing  tone 
of  our  own  inner  life. 

"So  duly,  daily,  needs  provision  be 
For  keeping  the  soul's  prowess  possible, 
Building  new  barriers  as  the  old  decay, 
Saving  us  from  evasion  of  life's  proof, 
Putting  the  question  ever,  '  Does  God  love, 
And  will  ye  hold  that  truth  against  the  world  '  ?"  a 

1  American  Journal  of  Theology,  October,  1898,  p.  824. 

2  Robert  Browning,  A  Death  in  the  Desert. 


2O4  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

"Religion  is  a  deed,"  Lotze  says;  and  that 
would  mean  that  our  certainty  of  God,  like 
our  certainty  of  the  ethical  realities,  would  go 
up  and  down  with  our  own  moral  life. 

Closely  connected  with  this  kind  of  cer- 
tainty that  we  may  have  of  God,  is  the  reason 
that  exists  for  the  needed  obscurity  of  spiritual 
truth.  This  reason  is  like  the  familiar  "ad- 
vantageous deficiency"  in  moral  insight,  as  it 
has  been  called,  according  to  which,  in  spite 
of  much  experience  of  the  happiness  of  do- 
ing right,  it  still  seems  to  us,  with  each  re- 
curring temptation,  that  our  happiness  lies 
in  the  line  of  the  temptation,  and  that  to  turn 
from  this  temptation  is  to  turn  our  backs  on 
our  happiness.  This  deficiency  in  moral  in- 
sight, as  well  as  the  familiar  complaint  that 
the  wicked  prosper,  that  the  righteous  are 
not  always  rewarded,  that  the  innocent  suf- 
fer— all  this  is  necessary  if  life  is  to  be  at  all 
an  adequate  sphere  for  the  development  of 
moral  character.  If  the  reward  of  righteous- 
ness followed  at  once  and  invariably,  and  this 
were  always  infallibly  clear  to  us,  we  could 
not  trust  our  own  righteousness ;  it  would 
seem  at  best  but  enlightened  selfishness.  But 
now  we  can  "serve  God  for  naught."  Now 
a  similar  reason  exists  why  God's  relation  to 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  2O5 

us  must  not  be  an  obtrusive  one,  but  often 
hidden  past  our  tracing  out.  As  Kant  long 
ago  pointed  out,1  if  God  were  always  cer- 
tainly and  patently  present  to  us  with  full 
sense  of  the  meaning  of  the  fact,  there  would 
be  such  excess  of  motive  as  practically  to 
override  our  freedom.  There  would  be, 
again,  no  proper  sphere  for  the  development 
of  real  character.  We  need  the  invisible,  not 
the  visible,  God  for  character.  Without  de- 
veloping the  thought  further,  at  present,  the 
point  now  to  be  insisted  upon  is  that,  in 
speaking  of  religion  as  a  personal  relation  to 
God,  it  is  not  meant  that  the  relation  will 
be  a  perfectly  obvious  one,  constantly  obtrud- 
ing itself  upon  us  with  compulsive  force ;  it 
will  rather  be  distinctly  unobtrusive,  sometimes 
quite  hidden,  a  constant  divine  cooperation, 
but  guarding  most  sacredly  our  personal  free- 
dom, that  our  character  may  be  ours  in  truth. 
One  more  misconception  needs  to  be 
guarded  against  in  affirming  religion  to  be 
simply  a  personal  relation  to  God.  The  sig- 
nificance of  a  friendship  depends  upon  the 
significance  of  the  persons  involved.  Plainly 
the  personal  relation  to  God  must  be  as 

1 Dialectic  of  Pure  Practical  Reason,  Eng.  Tr. ;  Abbott's  Kant't 
Theory  of  Ethics,  pp.  356-358. 


2O6  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

unique  as  he  is  unique.  Can  we  see  clearly 
in  what  this  uniqueness  consists?  No  per- 
sonal relation  can  be  absolutely  single  and 
isolated.  Even  men  are  so  closely  related  to 
one  another  that  a  change  in  my  personal  re- 
lation to  one  may  vitally  affect  all  my  per- 
sonal relations.  But  still  the  relation  to  God 
has  a  universality  all  its  own. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  the  conviction  of 
the  love  of  God,  of  love  at  the  heart  of 
things,  ultimately  underlies  all  our  reason- 
ing and  all  our  living — all  our  happiness  and 
all  our  work.  For  that  any  of  these  should 
be  possible,  the  world  must  be  a  sphere  of 
rational  thinking  and  rational  action ;  and  ra- 
tional, not  merely  in  the  narrow  sense  that  it 
can  be  construed  by  our  intellects,  is  barely 
thinkable,  but  in  the  broad  sense,  that  it  has 
worth  that  can  satisfy  the  whole  man.  And 
any  whole-hearted  work,  too,  as  Paulsen  has 
indicated,1  must  go  forward  on  the  religious 
assumption  that  we  are  in  relation  to  God, 
that  there  is  a  great  ongoing  universal  plan 
embracing  our  little  work,  and  not  suffering 
it,  therefore,  to  be  a  worthless  fragment.  The 
relation  to  God,  in  all  these  fundamental  ways, 
obviously  not  only  includes  relations  to  all, 

^Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  8. 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  2OJ 

but   alone   gives    reality  and   meaning   to   all 
other  relations. 

In  the  second  place,  the  simple  existence 
of  God  and  of  other  moral  beings  constitutes 
forthwith  a  moral  universe,  without  any  exter- 
nal enactment  or  arrangement.  That  there 
is  such  a  moral  world  at  all  means  that  there 
is  law  expressed  in  the  very  constitution  of 
every  moral  being,  a  recognition  of  the 
eternal  distinction  of  right  and  wrong ;  and 
that  requires  the  law  of  consequences — that 
we  must  reap  what  we  sow.  Without  this 
there  could  be  no  moral  being,  and  so  no 
moral  world.  The  recognition  of  law  in  this 
sense,  therefore,  is  no  denial  of  the  sole  reality 
of  personal  relations ;  rather  is  it  true  that  per- 
sonal relations  necessarily  involve  law  so  con- 
ceived. It  is  to  be  noted,  moreover,  that  this 
law,  written  in  the  constitution  of  man,  must 
be  regarded  as  an  expression  of  the  personal 
will  of  God,  and  every  sin  becomes  thus  a 
personal  sin  against  God.  There  is  no  ab- 
stract law  or  government  of  any  kind.  The 
personal  relation  to  God,  then,  must  have  uni- 
versal moral  implications  such  as  no  other  per- 
sonal relation  can  have.  For  when  I  am  ap- 
proved of  God,  I  am  approved  by  the  Being 
who  is  himself  expressed  in  the  moral  consti- 


2O8         RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 

tution  of  all,  and  so  stand  approved  in  rela- 
tion to  all.  Such  a  personal  relation,  when 
adequately  conceived,  has  no  need  to  be  sup- 
plemented by  any  other  notion,  as  of  govern- 
ment. It  contains  in  itself  the  whole  truth. 
The  fact  is  not  that  we  are  in  personal  rela- 
tion to  God,  and  also  in  relation  to  his  gov- 
ernment ;  we  are  in  relation  to  the  govern- 
ment of  God  because  and  in  that  we  are  in 
personal  relation  to  God.  God  himself  is  in 
such  relation  to  all  his  creatures  that  relation 
to  him  cannot  be  an  isolated  relation,  but  puts 
us  at  once  in  touch  with  all. 

We  may  reach  the  same  result  from  an- 
other point  of  view.  To  come  into  friendship 
with  God  is  really  to  share  his  life ;  but  the 
very  life  of  God  is  love,  self-giving,  pouring 
himself  out  into  the  life  of  his  creatures.  To 
share  his  life,  therefore,  is  necessarily  to  enter 
into  like  loving  relations  to  all  men.  The  sec- 
ond commandment  thus  grows  inevitably  out 
of  the  first.  A  deepening  friendship  with  God, 
therefore,  includes  right  relations  with  men ; 
the  religious  life  is  ethical  in  its  very  nature 
and  from  the  start;  and  thus  once  more  it  is 
seen  to  be  impossible  to  come  into  right  per- 
sonal relation  to  God,  and  not  at  the  same  time 
to  come  into  right  relation  to  all  moral  beings. 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  2CK) 

The  relation  to  God,  therefore,  is  unique, 
because  conviction  of  the  love  of  God  under- 
lies all  rational  living,  because  God  is  himself 
the  source  of  the  moral  constitution  of  men, 
and  because  God  alone  is  perfect  in  charac- 
ter. For  all  these  reasons,  the  relation  to  God 
cannot  be  conceived  sentimentally,  and  is 
only  the  more  significant,  but  it  is  not  less 
personal.  In  all  these  basal  ways,  "we  love 
because  he  first  loved  us." 

To  the  philosophical  objection,  "But  is 
God  really  a  person?"  this  much  may  be  here 
briefly  said :  In  affirming  the  personality  of 
God,  no  thinker  means  to  assert  of  God  the 
limitations  of  man.  And  it  is  not  true,  as  is 
often  assumed,  that  in  removing  the  limita- 
tions involved  in  our  human  personality,  we 
have  thereby  denied  personality  to  God. 
Rather  are  we  coming  to  see,  according  to 
Lotze's  suggestion,1  that  it  is  a  part  of  the 
finiteness  of  us  men,  that  we  are  but  incom- 
pletely personal ;  that  complete  self-conscious- 
ness, complete  freedom,  and  perfect  person- 
ality cannot  belong  to  the  part,  but  only  to 
the  whole  ;  that  only  the  Infinite  can  be  com- 
pletely personal.  Moreover,  it  is  misleading 
to  say,  God  is  supra-personal,  though  not  sub- 

1  Op.  cit.,  Vol.  II,  pp.  683-688. 


2IO  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

personal,  if  more  is  meant  by  this  than  simply 
that  we  may  not  think  that  our  thought  can 
wholly  fathom  God,  that  we  do  not  know 
how  much  more  God  may  be  than  our  best 
thought  can  conceive.  For,  if  we  suppose 
that  we  can  go  on  to  define  the  supra-per- 
sonal, we  can  do  so  only  after  the  analogy  of 
either  the  personal  or  the  sub-personal,  since 
we  know  only  these.  And  if  now  we  turn 
from  the  personal,  we  turn  from  the  highest 
we  know  to  a  lower  analogy  to  form  our  con- 
ception of  God,  and  are  thus  simply  following 
the  analogy  of  the  sub-personal,  however  we 
try  to  conceal  the  fact  from  ourselves. 

II.    THE   LAWS   OF   THE   CHRISTIAN  LIFE,  THOSE   OF 
A   DEEPENING   FRIENDSHIP 

Having  guarded  thus  carefully  against  mis- 
conceptions, we  return  to  our  original  propo- 
sition :  Religion  is  a  personal  relation  of  man 
to  God.  Because  God  is  a  person  and  we  are 
persons,  our  relation  to  him  must  be  a  per- 
sonal relation.  Moreover,  as  personality  is 
complete  only  in  God,  our  relation  to  God 
ought  to  be  even  more  completely  personal 
than  our  relation  to  men,  not  so  subject  to 
human  limitations.  And  again,  the  more 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  211 

strenuously  one  insists  upon  religion  as  ethi- 
cal, the  more  fully  must  religion  be  recog- 
nized as  a  personal  relation,  for  ethical  rela- 
tions are  everywhere  ultimately  personal. 
With  clear  perception,  then,  of  the  unique 
significance  of  the  relation  to  God,  we  must 
still  unhesitatingly  assert  that  religion  is  a  per- 
sonal relation  to  God. 

But  if  this  is  so,  it  means  that  all  the  ex- 
periences of  the  Christian  life  may  best  be 
brought  under  the  phenomena  of  friendship; 
that  its  highest  possible  attainments  may  be 
best  considered  as  a  deepening  friendship ; 
that  the  conditions  may  be  best  known  and 
best  definitely  formulated  as  conditions  of  a 
deepening  friendship.  This  conception  of 
the  Christian  life  as  friendship  is  fundamental 
and  thoroughgoing,  with  wide  implications. 
It  has  been  often  used  in  an  illustrative  way 
as  an  analogy;  but,  so  far  as  the  writer  knows, 
it  has  never  been  carried  thoroughly  through 
in  all  the  aspects  of  Christian  life  and  experi- 
ence and  thinking,  as  the  nearest  approach 
man  can  make  to  the  final  realities  of  religion. 
It  is  far  more  than  an  analogy;  it  is  a  fact; 
our  relation  to  God  is  a  personal  relation,  and 
its  laws  must  be  those  of  personal  relations. 
To  say  so  is  only  to  interpret  religion  by  the 


212  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

very  highest  in  ourselves,  and  this  is  our  best 
and  only  adequate  key.  If  we  fail  to  use  this 
conception,  we  are  simply  forced  to  employ  a 
lower  and  less  sufficient  analogy. 

We  are  coming  with  increasing  clearness 
to  recognize  that  there  must  be  law  in  the 
spiritual  world ;  that  there  must  be  conditions 
which  may  be  known  and  fulfilled.  We  have 
not  seen  quite  so  clearly  that  there  is  a  guid- 
ing principle  which  will  direct  us  infallibly  to 
these  laws  and  conditions.  With  the  coming 
in  of  man,  evolution  reaches  in  its  progress 
the  stage  of  personal  relation  and  revela- 
tion; and  upon  principles  of  evolution  itself 
we  should  expect,  on  this  new  stage,  new  laws 
which  will  dominate  the  lower  laws.  These 
new  laws  correspond  to  the  stage  reached  and 
are,  consequently,  laws  of  personal  relation.  If 
a  man  knows,  then,  the  laws  of  any  true  friend- 
ship, he  may  know  all  the  essential  laws  of  the 
friendship  with  God.  He  need  not  work  in 
the  dark,  or  catch  eagerly,  now  at  this  great 
secret  of  Christian  living,  now  at  that;  the 
laws  and  conditions  are  certain ;  they  may  be 
known  and  fulfilled,  and  one  may  count  on 
the  result ;  and  they  are  the  laws  and  condi- 
tions of  a  deepening  friendship.  One's  whole 
life  so  takes  on  a  marvelous  unity.  The  di- 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  213 

vine  and  human  relations  are  no  longer  at  war. 
Every  human  relation  truly  fulfilled  throws 
direct  light  on  the  divine  relation  and  is  a 
direct  help  to  it. 


III.    THE    SUBORDINATE   ANALOGY   OF   GROWING 
APPRECIATION  OF  ANY  SPHERE  OF  VALUE 

A  useful  subordinate  analogy  (not  wholly 
adequate)  may  serve  as  an  introduction  to  the 
fuller  statement  of  the  laws  of  a  deepening 
friendship.  The  laws  which  hold  in  growing 
appreciation  of  any  sphere  of  value,  hold  also 
in  personal  relations,  and  have  there  their 
highest  exemplification,  for  in  persons  is 
finally  concentrated  all  value.  How,  then,  do 
we  come  into  a  growing  appreciation  of  any 
sphere  of  value:  of  beauty  in  nature,  of  music, 
of  art,  or  of  literature? 

In  the  first  place,  we  are  commonly  intro- 
duced into  the  new  sphere  of  value  through 
the  witness  of  some  other.  Our  attention  is 
directed  to  the  new  value  because  of  what  it 
seems  to  mean  to  some  one  else.  A  man,  who 
should  depend  wholly  on  his  own  original  dis- 
coveries of  the  valuable,  would  live  inevitably 
a  very  narrow  life.  The  artist,  the  genius, 
the  true  critic,  is  a  man  who  has  seen;  he 


214  RECONSTRUCTION    IN     THEOLOGY 

calls  our  attention  to  a  value  we  are  miss- 
ing. But  if  this  witness  of  another  is  to  be  of 
any  worth,  it  must  be  absolutely  honest,  a  true 
statement  of  what  the  other  has  found. 

The  second  condition  for  a  growing  appre- 
ciation of  the  best  things  is  absolute  honesty  on 
our  own  part.  Merely  to  repeat  another's  wit- 
ness as  our  own  is  not  only  misleading  to  oth- 
ers, but  dishonest  and  damaging  to  our  own 
further  vision  and  growth.  Few  things  are 
more  damaging  to  growing  appreciation  in 
any  sphere  than  pretense.  To  begin  with 
pretense  is  to  vitiate  any  genuine  appreciation 
from  the  start.  But  there  is  need  of  caution 
here.  In  our  desire  to  be  absolutely  honest, 
we  are  not  forthwith  to  identify  all  the  real 
with  what  now  seems  real  to  us.  It  is  true 
that  we  are  not  to  pretend  at  any  point,  but 
we  are  not  thereby  to  deny  the  value  and 
reality  of  all  that  is  either,  in  our  present 
mood,  unreal  to  us,  or  has  not  yet  been  at  all 
reached  by  us. 

A  third  condition,  therefore,  of  growth  into 
the  thing  of  value  is  modesty  —  teachableness; 
no  dishonest  repetition,  certainly,  of  the  wit- 
ness of  another  who  has  larger  experience 
in  this  sphere,  but  no  denial  either  of  his 
witness;  rather  the  confident  hope  of  much 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  215 

yet  to  come  for  ourselves,  to  which  we  too, 
therefore,  may  in  time  bear  honest  witness. 

But  the  greatest  of  all  conditions  for  grow- 
ing appreciation  of  the  valuable,  and  the 
condition  that  in  a  way  involves  all  others, 
is  simply  staying  in  the  presence  of  the  best  in 
any  given  sphere  of  value.  Read  persistently 
the  best  books,  hear  persistently  the  best  mu- 
sic, see  persistently  the  best  art,  and  uncon- 
sciously your  taste  will  improve  and  grow  cer- 
tain. This  is  the  highest  and  surest  counsel 
that  can  be  given  for  growth  into  the  valua- 
ble. You  need  not  pretend.  The  best  will 
in  time  justify  and  verify  itself — make  its  own 
appeal  to  you.  But  the  very  statement  of  this 
last  and  greatest  condition  for  growing  appre- 
ciation implies  that  one  may  know  beforehand 
that  he  cannot  get  the  whole  value  at  once. 
The  greater  the  value,  the  more  certainly  will 
it  take  long  time  for  full  appreciation;  and 
the  highest  test  of  the  truly  classical  is  that  it 
not  only  bears  acquaintance,  but  perpetually 
grows  on  one  with  acquaintance. 

These  conditions,  then,  of  our  dependence 
on  the  witness  of  another,  of  honesty,  of  mod- 
esty, and  of  staying  in  the  presence  of  the 
best,  hold  in  all  spheres  of  value,  and  not  less 
in  a  deepening  friendship.  It  is  worth  while 


2l6  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

to  state  them,  and  to  see  their  truth,  and  to 
discern  the  close  analogy  which  holds  be- 
tween the  value  of  persons  and  other  values, 
for  the  very  reason  that  we  feel  less  intensely 
concerning  these  other  values  because  they 
are  not  personal  and  moral ;  and  hence  we 
can  sometimes  see  more  dispassionately  and 
clearly  just  what  the  conditions  are,  and  so 
carry  their  light  over  into  the  final  interpre- 
tation of  the  personal. 

Passing,  then,  even  from  the  helpful  anal- 
ogy of  growing  appreciation  of  the  beautiful, 
directly  to  our  problem,  what  are  the  laws  of 
a  deepening  friendship  ?  The  friendship  with 
God  must  have  essentially  the  same  basis  and 
the  same  conditions  as  any  deepening  friend- 
ship worthy  the  name.  What  is  that  basis, 
and  what  are  those  conditions  ?  The  limits 
of  this  chapter  permit  but  the  briefest  state- 
ment; but  the  writer  believes  that  the  more 
carefully  the  comparison  is  wrought  out  and 
studied,  the  more  complete  will  be  its  justifi- 
cation. 

IV.    THE  BASIS  OF  THE  DIVINE  FRIENDSHIP 

The  basis  of  any  true  friendship  is  three- 
fold :  mutual  self-revelation  and  answering 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  217 

trust,  mutual  self-surrender,  and  some  deep 
community  of  interests. 

In  the  first  place,  in  order  to  any  genuine 
friendship  there  must  be  mutual  self-revelation 
and  answering  trust.  Trust  implies  some  per- 
sonal self-revelation,  and  there  must  be  trust 
in  both  the  character  and  the  love  of  the 
other.  As  long  as  two  people  are  still  "on 
probation"  with  each  other,  there  can  be  no 
real  friendship.  "Perfect  love  casteth  out 
fear."  In  a  high  and  genuine  friendship  the 
friends  feel  no  need  to  "make  terms"  with 
each  other;  and  they  can  trust  each  other  out 
of  sight.  "Do  you  really  think  that  I  could 
doubt  her?"  the  hero  of  a  modern  novel 
replies  to  an  attempt  to  break  down  his  faith 
in  his  friend. 

We  have  sometimes  strangely  wondered 
why  faith  is  so  prominent  in  religion,  and 
at  times  it  has  even  seemed  that  revelation 
and  faith  belonged  only  in  religion;  while 
in  fact  they  are  the  basis  of  every  real  friend- 
ship—  a  mutual  self- revelation  that  makes 
possible  real  trust  in  the  character  and  love 
of  the  other.  Our  relation  to  God,  espe- 
cially, we  have  already  seen,  cannot  be  an 
obtrusive  one,  and  there  must  be,  therefore, 
the  more  call  for  faith  in  the  invisible  God ; 


21 8  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

but  every  friendship  is  a  sphere  of  revelation 
and  a  call  for  faith,  and  cannot  go  on  without 
them.  And  the  Christian's  God  has  made 
such  a  revelation  of  himself  in  Christ  as  calls 
out  the  most  absolute  childlike  trust. 

But  Christ  not  only  calls  out  trust,  he  trusts 
us,  in  that  he  relies  not  upon  rules,  but  upon 
the  one  great  principle  of  loyal  love  to  him- 
self; in  that  he  has  committed  into  our  care 
the  great  interests  of  his  kingdom ;  and  in 
his  frequent  call  to  unexplained  suffering. 

Every  real  friendship  also  implies  mutual 
self-surrender.  Perhaps  the  best  definition  we 
can  make  of  love  is  the  giving  of  self.  What 
we  ask  from  our  friends  is  not  things  finally 
nor  some  kind  of  treatment,  but  themselves. 
It  is  evident  that  real  self-surrender  to  another 
presupposes  trust.  We  cannot  absolutely  sub- 
mit without  absolute  trust,  and  the  trust  de- 
pends on  a  preceding  revelation.  In  any  per- 
sonal relation,  too,  it  is  plain  that  the  depth  of 
the  friendship  depends  upon  the  complete- 
ness with  which  the  selves  are  given,  and  the 
significance  of  the  friendship  depends  upon 
the  richness  of  the  selves  given.  On  the  one 
hand,  we  may  almost  make  a  graduated  scale 
of  our  friendships  according  to  the  degree 
in  which  we  give  ourselves  in  them ;  in  the 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  21 Q 

closest  friendships  there  is  the  completest 
surrender.  On  the  other  hand,  if  the  friend- 
ship is  to  have  large  significance,  the  selves 
given  must  be  of  large  worth.  It  is  just  here 
that  love  itself  demands  the  duty  of  growth, 
of  self-improvement,  and  checks  the  false 
self-sacrifice  that  makes  one  unable  to  meet 
the  later  needs  of  his  friends.  At  the  same 
time,  in  our  highest  human  friendships  we 
are  perfectly  conscious  that  the  self-surrender 
demanded,  though  real  enough,  is  "not  a 
weakening  denial  of  self,  but  a  strengthening 
affirmation  of  self."1  We  know  that  every 
great  friendship,  though  it  calls  imperatively 
for  self-surrender,  is  still  an  enlargement  of 
life,  that  here  in  very  truth  we  find  ourselves 
as  we  lose  ourselves. 

Now,  when  we  come  to  apply  this  condi- 
tion of  self-surrender  to  our  relation  to  God, 
plainly  we  must  say,  this  is  no  demand  pe- 
culiar to  God.  In  the  proportion  in  which 
the  friendship  is  complete,  we  make  exactly 
the  same  demand  and  must.  There  is  no 
friendship  without  mutual  self  -  surrender. 
Just  as  clearly,  also,  must  we  say,  this  is  no 
arbitrary  demand  on  the  part  of  God.  As 
in  every  friendship,  God  can  give  himself 

v1Ritschl,  Unterrichtin  der  Christlichen  Religion,  Fourth  Ed.,  p.n. 


22O  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

to  us  only  in  that  measure  in  which  we  give 
ourselves  to  him.  He  asks  for  complete  self- 
surrender  of  ourselves  to  him,  only  that  he 
may  be  able  to  give  himself  completely  to 
us.  It  is  passing  strange  that  the  terms, 
which  we  use  without  misgiving  and  even 
with  joy  in  our  human  relations,  have  so  dif- 
ferent and  hard  a  sound  in  relation  to  God — 
self-surrender,  self-giving,  self-denial,  com- 
plete devotement ;  but  they  are  the  one  way 
to  the  largest  and  richest  life,  in  the  one  re- 
lation as  in  the  other. 

Two  opposite  instincts  exist  in  men — self- 
devotion  and  the  insatiate  thirst  for  love ;  and 
there  is  only  one  relation  in  which  both  may 
be  absolutely  unchecked.  There  are  neces- 
sary limitations  in  every  human  relationship — 
limits  in  our  self-revelation,  limits  in  our  sub- 
mission, limits  in  our  devotion,  limits  in  satis- 
fying response.  "I  would  rather  be  broken 
by  you  than  caressed  by  another,"  a  modern 
heroine  is  made  to  say  to  the  hero ;  but  we 
may  not  say  that  to  any  human  being.  In 
much  we  are  and  must  be  alone.  There  is 
only  one  relation  in  which  we  can  give  our- 
selves unstintedly,  only  one  relation  capable 
of  wholly  satisfying.  "Only  God  can  satisfy 
the  longings  of  an  immortal  soul,  that  as 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  221 

the  heart  was  made  for  him,  so  he  only  can 
fill  it." 

The  third  element  in  the  basis  of  any  true 
friendship  is  some  deep  community  of  interests. 
If  there  has  been  full  revelation  and  self-sur- 
render, the  community  of  interests  in  essen- 
tials follows,  as  of  course.  Otherwise  there 
could  not  be  real  mutual  understanding.  No 
friendship  can  come  to  its  highest  where 
there  is  not  agreement  as  to  the  great  aims, 
ideals,  and  purposes  of  life.  That  is  a  pov- 
erty-stricken friendship,  indeed,  in  which 
there  is  no  sympathy  in  the  highest  moments, 
in  which  at  your  best  you  must  leave  the  other 
out.  Paul's  "Be  not  unequally  yoked  with 
unbelievers,"  thus,  is  intended  as  no  limiting 
counsel.  He  would  only  say:  Do  not  provide 
for  yourselves  the  intensest  pain,  of  finding  in 
all  your  highest  moments  those  shut  out  who 
stand  in  the  closest  life  relation  to  you.  The 
truest  friends  must  be  able  to  say :  The  inter- 
ests which  are  supreme  for  you  are  supreme 
for  me. 

And  just  such  a  deep  community  of  inter- 
ests must  there  be  in  our  relation  to  God. 
Our  mastering  interests  must  be  the  same  as 
Christ's.  We  must  really  share  God's  life  of 
self-giving  love.  And  in  the  joy  of  the  abso- 


222  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

lute  trust  called  out  by  the  perfect  revelation 
in  Christ,  and  of  complete  self-surrender,  say : 
The  interests  which  are  supreme  for  Thee 
shall  be  supreme  for  me.  "Thy  kingdom 
come,  Thy  will  be  done." 

V.    THE  CONDITIONS   FOR   DEEPENING  THE 
FRIENDSHIP 

With  this  basis  assumed,  what,  in  briefest 
summary,  are  the  conditions  for  deepening  a 
friendship?  Just  these,  if  we  can  find  them, 
are  the  conditions  for  a  continually  deepen- 
ing Christian  life.  From  the  beginning  one 
needs  to  remember  that  no  natural  friend- 
ship is  a  work  of  conscious  arrangement,  but 
rather  an  unconscious  growth.  In  no  per- 
sonal relation  is  it  wholesome  to  seek  expe- 
riences as  such.  The  highest  enjoyments  and 
most  valuable  gifts  of  friendship  come  inci- 
dentally, rather  than  as  consciously  sought. 

First  of  all  then,  in  every  personal  relation, 
upon  the  basis  of  a  well-grounded  trust,  let 
one  assure  himself  of  the  meaning  of  the 
friendship,  but  not  expect  continuous  emotion. 
Neither  our  physical  nor  our  mental  con- 
stitutions admit  it.  And  no  acquaintance 
will  stand  constant  introspection.  We  are 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  223 

simply  to  fulfil  the  conditions  of  a  growing 
friendship,  and  count  upon  the  results. 

The  second  great  condition  is  association. 
This  is  fundamental,  and  may  be  taken  as 
almost  summing  up  all.  Friendship  is  not 
the  product  of  certain  rules,  but  of  much 
association.  You  wake  up  after  a  time  with  a 
kind  of  surprise  to  find  how  much  the  friend- 
ship means.  And  this  is  the  one  great  es- 
sential for  a  deepening  friendship  with  God. 
We  are  to  stay  in  the  presence  of  Christ,  to 
give  him  a  chance  at  us,  by  attention,  by 
thought,  by  taking  his  point  of  view  and 
studying  his  thought,  by  getting  into  touch 
with  his  feeling  and  his  purpose  —  living  in 
his  atmosphere.  We  can  be  sure  of  the  ef- 
fects in  character  and  friendship.  "To  me  to 
live  is  Christ." 

The  third  condition  is  time,  and  is  really 
involved  in  association.  Time  is  necessary  to 
grow  into  any  great  thing.  No  acquaintance 
can  become  deep  without  time ;  any  friend- 
ship will  grow  cold  to  which  no  time  is  given. 
This  giving  of  time  is  the  practical  giving  of 
self,  as  observation  of  the  way  in  which 
friends  drift  apart  will  show.  The  emphasis 
laid  on  the  daily  use  of  the  Bible  and  prayer 
ought  to  be  regarded  as  really  only  a  rational 


224  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

recognition  of  the  need  that  some  real  place 
must  be  given  to  the  divine  friendship,  if  it  is 
to  grow.  Here,  too,  belongs  the  recognition 
of  the  great  significance  of  occasional  longer 
times  together,  in  deepening  a  friendship. 

Another  condition  of  any  deepening  friend- 
ship is  expression.  The  psychological  law  is 
unmistakable.  Consciousness  is  naturally  im- 
pulsive; every  idea  tends  to  pass  into  act. 
Only  through  expression  does  any  psychical 
state  get  its  full  significance.  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  which  is  not  expressed  dies. 
If  then  any  friendship  is  to  grow,  it  must  get 
expression  ;  by  word,  especially  by  seeking  to 
please  in  little  things,  by  manifestation  of 
gratitude,  by  sympathy  in  the  joy  of  your 
friend — one  of  the  most  difficult  attainments, 
by  sharing  in  a  great  work,  by  sharing  of  sor- 
row and  sacrifice — not  only  in  willingness  to 
share  the  sorrows  of  your  friend,  but  in  shar- 
ing yours  with  him.  It  is  mistaken  kindness 
to  shut  your  friend  out  of  your  deepest  ex- 
periences, even  when  those  experiences  are 
painful.  These  painful  experiences  are  often 
peculiarly  the  times  of  the  revelation  of  our 
friends  and  of  God.  In  any  true  human 
friendship  we  are  glad  to  show  by  sacrifice 
the  reality  of  our  love.  And  Christ  honors 


RELIGION    AS    A    PERSONAL    RELATION  225 

us  by  calling  us  to  these  varied  expressions 
of  our  love,  and  by  sharing  with  us  his  own 
cup  and  his  own  baptism.  That  expression 
is  most  perfect  that  enters  most  fully  into 
God's  own  redeeming  activity.  "Insomuch 
as  ye  are  partakers  of  Christ's  sufferings,  re- 
joice." 

A  further  and  most  important  condition  of 
any  deepening  friendship  is  a  sacred  respect 
for  the  personality  of  the  other.  One's  sense 
of  the  sacredness  of  a  person  is  a  pretty  accu- 
rate measure  of  his  own  highest  growth.  A 
true  friend  never  demands ;  he  never  over- 
rides ;  he  asks  only.  There  are  limitations  to 
all  intimacies.  Every  soul  must  in  much  be 
alone,  and  ought  to  be.  One  only  degrades 
his  friendships  when  he  measures  them  by  the 
number  of  liberties  he  takes,  the  number  of 
privacies  he  rides  over  rough-shod.  Any 
deep  self-revelation  can  be  made  only  to  the 
reverent. 

And  God  marvelously  respects  our  free- 
dom. He  knocks  only;  he  does  not  force 
the  door.  He  never  overrides  our  freedom  in 
an  obtrusive  relation.  And  for  the  same  rea- 
son, he  does  not  step  in  continually  to  set 
things  right.  This  is  no  play  world,  and  our 
characters  are  our  own.  And  upon  our  part 


226  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

there  may  be  no  approach  to  dictation  to  God 
as  to  the  time,  or  manner,  or  method  of  his 
revelation.  His  best  revelation,  too,  can  be 
made  only  to  the  deeply  reverent.  "The 
secret  of  the  Lord  is  with  them  that  fear 
him." 

In  every  deepening  friendship,  too,  one 
must  be  real.  The  condition  is  imperative. 
We  are  to  be  real  only,  always ;  there  are  to 
be  no  false  assertions,  no  forced  feelings.  We 
are  not  to  start  or  to  continue  on  a  false  basis. 
There  is  to  be  no  pretense  anywhere,  for  it  saps 
all  reality  in  the  relation  with  God  or  man. 
Our  prayers  are  to  be,  first  of  all,  honest,  our 
confessions  honest,  our  witness  honest,  our 
profession  honest.  We  are  to  be  real. 

Breaking  off  our  comparison  in  the  midst, 
and  leaving  almost  untouched  the  explicit 
treatment  of  one  of  the  most  important  and 
interesting  of  its  applications  —  that  of  the 
effect  of  sin  upon  personal  relations,  let  us 
raise,  in  closing  the  chapter,  the  question  of 
the  beginning:  Have  we  given  anything  like 
due  weight  to  Christ's  thought  of  religion  as 
a  personal  relation  to  God?  Have  we  recog- 
nized the  constantly  growing  light  that  this 
conception,  simple  as  it  seems,  has  to  shed  on 
all  our  Christian  living  and  thinking? 


CHAPTER  XII 

THEOLOGY  IN   TERMS   OF  PERSONAL   RELATION 

IF  it  is  true,  as  Professor  Clarke  says,  that 
"religion  is  the  reality  of  which  theology  is 
the  study,"  and  if  religion  is  a  personal  rela- 
tion of  man  to  God,  then  it  would  seem  that 
an  adequate  theology  must  be  stated  in  per- 
sonal terms.  The  writer  cannot  doubt  that 
religion  is  best  conceived  as  a  personal  rela- 
tion, as  the  last  chapter  has  tried  to  show;  and 
he  certainly  holds  that  theology  is  best  de- 
fined as  simply  a  thoughtful  and  unified  ex- 
pression of  what  religion  means  to  us.  He 
is  bound,  therefore,  to  affirm  that  theology 
must  be  stated  in  terms  of  personal  relation. 
This  conception,  which  the  ninth  chapter  has 
already  indicated  as  the  true  goal  of  theologi- 
cal, reconstruction,  the  present  chapter,  bring- 
ing together  some  of  the  lines  of  the  previous 
discussion,  undertakes  definitely  to  defend 
and  partially  to  illustrate.  The  illustration 
is  confined  to  the  presentation  of  a  few 
points  in  the  conception  of  Christ. 

(227) 


228  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

I.  THEOLOGY  MUST  BE  STATED  IN  PERSONAL  TERMS 

The  very  name,  Christian,  which  we  take 
upon  us,  as  best  characterizing  what  seems  to 
us  most  essential  in  the  spirit  which  we  are  to 
show,  implies  that  we  know  that  all  life  is 
changed  for  us  by  a  single  personal  relation. 
To  trace  out  in  all  its  implications  the  full 
significance  of  that  relation  for  our  entire 
being  is  the  sole  business  of  theology. 

Some  recognition  of  this  intensely  personal 
nature  of  the  themes  of  theology,  doubtless, 
there  has  always  been;  but  theology  has  not 
been  able  to  avoid  the  great  common  danger 
of  all  speculative  thinking  —  the  danger  of  ab- 
straction—  and  has,  consequently,  too  often 
lost  quite  out  of  sight  the  rich  concrete  per- 
sonal relations  in  a  maze  of  metaphysical  ab- 
stractions. It  is  well  worth  while,  therefore, 
consciously  and  of  set  purpose  to  attempt  a 
statement  of  theology  in  strictly  personal 
terms  —  to  demand  of  ourselves  that  we  keep 
constantly  in  mind  the  meaning  of  personal 
relations. 

This  would  only  be  carrying  out  what  is 
fairly  involved  in  the  demand  which  Dr.  Fair- 
child  laid  upon  himself  in  the  preface  to  his 
Elements  of  Theology:  "The  controlling  thought 


THEOLOGY    IN     PERSONAL    TERMS  22Q 

in  the  mind  of  the  author,  the  organic  prin- 
ciple in  the  system  of  doctrine  presented,  is 
the  recognition  of  the  distinct  and  complete 
personality  of  God,  and  a  like  personality  of 
man."1  Very  likely  many  readers  of  that  pref- 
ace saw  little  in  this  sentence,  and  said  to 
themselves :  Is  that  not  what  every  theologian 
does  as  a  matter  of  course  ?  Unfortunately  it 
is  not.  Indeed,  the  trend  in  theology  towards 
impersonal  forms  of  statement  has  been  so 
strong  that,  even  for  a  man  who  felt  earnestly 
the  personal  nature  of  the  problems,  a  thor- 
oughly consistent  statement  of  theological 
doctrines  in  personal  terms  has  been  exceed- 
ingly difficult.  Professor  Clarke,  for  exam- 
ple, in  his  deservedly  popular  Outline  of 
Christian  Theology,  when  dealing  with  the 
heart  of  the  Christian  faith,  similarly  says : 
"The  intensely  personal  nature  of  this  rec- 
onciliation has  not  here  been  overstated, 
— scarcely,  indeed,  can  it  be  represented  in 
too  strong  a  light.  .  .  .  The  reconciliation 
is  not  a  matter  of  relation  to  law  or  govern- 
ment; it  is  primarily  and  essentially  a  matter 
of  the  relation  between  persons,  God  and 
men.  ...  It  is  the  personal  relation  that 
needs  to  be  set  right,  and  it  is  through  being 

1  Elements  of  Theology,  p.  iv. 


230        RECONSTRUCTION  IN  THEOLOGY 

right  with  God  that  men  are  to  be  made  right 
with  the  government  of  God."1  And  Herr- 
mann, even  more  comprehensively  and  con- 
cisely, says:  "In  its  commencement  and  in  all 
its  development  alike,  Christian  faith  is  noth- 
ing else  than  trust  in  persons  and  in  the 
powers  of  personal  life."2  One  may  believe 
thoroughly  in  these  statements  of  Clarke  and 
Herrmann,  and  regard  them  as,  no  doubt, 
forming  a  kind  of  ideal  for  both  men,  and 
yet  question  whether  either  always  keeps  en- 
tirely true  to  his  personal  conception  of  the 
theological  problem. 

Any  one,  indeed,  who  has  himself  passed 
through  a  transition  in  his  conception  of  theo- 
logical problems,  and  who  lives  in  a  genera- 
tion so  distinctly  transitional  as  this  genera- 
tion has  been,  must  find  it  difficult  to  avoid 
the  transitional  in  his  forms  of  statement,  or 
even  of  conception;  and,  in  spite  of  himself, 
he  will  repeatedly  fall  back  into  what  is  really 
inconsistent  with  his  highest  point  of  view. 
But  if,  as  many  things  seem  to  indicate,  we 
are  on  the  eve  of  a  new  constructive  period 
in  theology,  which  shall  organize,  even  more 
completely  than  any  of  the  admirable  state- 

lAn  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  p.  322. 
2O/>.  cit.,  p.  178. 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  231 

ments  already  made,  the  different  lines  of 
progress  of  our  time,  can  we  not  be  sure  that 
the  dominant  word  in  that  new  construction 
will  be — not  evolution,  not  historical,  not  crit- 
ical, not  social,  not  ethical  even,  but  broader 
than  any  one  of  these  and  including  all — per- 
sonal? 

Many  considerations  certainly  urge  us  to 
such  an  attempt  at  a  strictly  personal  inter- 
pretation of  theological  problems. 

1.  In  the  first  place,  the  very  fact,  assumed 
at  the  start,  that  religion  is  a  personal  relation 
of   man  to   God,  at   once  provokes   such  an 
attempt.     We  cannot  help  feeling  that  if  we 
could  justly  conceive  that  personal  relation, 
we  should  be  far  on  the  road  to  the  solution 
of   all   our   questions   in   theology.      An   ap- 
proach to  such  a  conception  the  last  chapter 
has  attempted.     And,  certainly,  if  the   state- 
ments  of  that   chapter   concerning  our  per- 
sonal relation  to  God  are  to  be  given  weight, 
it   is    evident   that   any  theology  that   really 
meets  the  facts  must  be  saturated  with  a  deep 
sense  of  the  meaning  of  the  personal. 

2.  Moreover,  if  one  chose  to  start  from  the 
metaphysical  side,  he  is  confronted,  as  never 
before,  with  three  facts  which  show  that  our 
ultimate    philosophical    solutions    are    every- 


232  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

where  tending  to  the  personal :  First,  the 
collapse  of  materialism ;  second,  the  predom- 
inance of  idealistic  or  spiritualistic  views  in 
philosophy;  third,  the  growing  acceptance 
of  the  teleological  view  of  essence.  It  is  no 
accidental  result  that,  within  our  own  time, 
materialism  has  ceased  to  exist  as  a  philosoph- 
ical theory.  On  all  hands,  moreover,  it  seems 
to  be  increasingly  recognized  that,  if  we  are 
ever  to  understand  the  world,  the  key  must 
be,  as  Leibnitz  thought  it,  in  ourselves.  Ac- 
cordingly, in  spite  of  the  vast  increase  in  our 
knowledge  of  the  material  universe,  our  phi- 
losophies are  more  and  more  idealistic  or  spir- 
itualistic, holding  either  that  only  minds  exist, 
or  that  all  that  does  exist  is  of  the  nature  of 
mind.  Both  views  assert  alike  that  at  least  we 
know  best  and  most  directly  spirit;  and  both 
seem  likely  to  come  to  affirm,  with  Paulsen, 
that  here,  in  our  own  inner  life,  we  know  the 
essence  of  reality,  and  that  "the  distinction 
made  between  a  phenomenon  and  a  thing  in 
itself  has  absolutely  no  meaning  here."1  All 
this  means  that,  ultimately,  all  relations  are 
personal,  or  in  the  line  of  the  personal. 

So,   too,   the  growing   tendency  to  define 
essence    (in   the   sense  of  that  which  distin- 

1  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  366. 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  233 

guishes  one  being  from  another,  not  that 
which  is  common  to  all  beings)  in  terms  of 
purpose,  is  a  distinct  tendency  towards  defini- 
tion in  personal  terms.  The  recognition  that 
we  can  speak  of  the  essential  quality  of  a 
thing  only  in  view  of  the  purpose  we  cherish 
concerning  it,  is  becoming  well-nigh  universal 
among  philosophical  writers.  What  one  will 
call  the  essential  quality  of  paper,  for  exam- 
ple, depends  upon  the  use  he  wishes  to  make 
of  it.  Ultimately,  this  teleological  view  of  es- 
sence must  bring  us  to  a  new  metaphysics,  in 
which  the  real  essence  of  each  thing  must  be 
defined  in  terms  of  the  full  divine  purpose  in 
bringing  this  thing  into  being.  All  that  God 
meant  it  to  be,  the  full  part  which  he  meant 
it  to  play — that  is  the  only  adequate  definition 
of  the  essence  of  anything.  And  this  teleo- 
logical view  of  essence,  now  rightly  prevailing 
in  philosophy,  has  a  significance  for  theology 
which  we  are  but  slowly  recognizing. 

Even  a  true  metaphysics  then,  seems,  ul- 
timately, everywhere  to  drive  us  to  attempt 
a  theology  in  personal  terms. 

3.  But  if  this  present  distinct  trend  in  phi- 
losophy towards  the  personal  is  justified  it 
gives  a  new  reason  for  believing,  what  was 
previously  asserted,  that  we  know  spirit,  per- 


234  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

sonal  life,  better  than  anything  else ;  that,  for 
our  generation  at  least,  personal  relations  are 
really  clearer  than  any  of  the  analogies  from 
other  things  by  which  we  have  tried  to  make 
them  clear.  And  from  whatever  realm  we 
draw  those  analogies — whether  from  human 
institutions  or  from  the  evolution  of  lower 
nature — we  can  know  beforehand  that  the 
analogies  must  prove  insufficient  and  in  part 
misleading.  The  personal  reality  is  greater 
than  any  of  its  illustrations.  Many  have  come 
to  see  that  this  is  true  of  all  legal  and  govern- 
mental analogies,  who  do  not  see  that  it  is 
just  as  true  of  evolution  analogies.  But  our 
discussion  of  evolution  convinced  us  that  any 
adequate  view  of  evolution  must  include  man, 
and  that  with  man  we  have  reached  the  stage 
of  persons  and  personal  relations,  and  the 
dominant  laws  must  be  those  of  personal  rela- 
tion, not  those  of  the  lower  animal  evolution. 
The  analogy  of  the  organism,  therefore,  as 
well  as  the  analogy  from  human  institutions, 
is  certain  to  fail  us  at  the  most  vital  points. 
The  first  and  foremost,  the  constant,  the  last, 
and  the  greatest  study  of  the  theologian  must  be 
of  persons  and  of  personal  relations;  nothing 
else  will  avail  him  in  his  deepest  problems. 
And  if  he  will  really  face  the  facts,  he  will 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  235 

come  to  see  that  the  personal  lies  closer  at 
hand,  is  more  real  and  more  clear  to  him, 
than  anything  else. 

4.  It  is  quite  in  harmony  with  the  philo- 
sophical trend  and  the  new  clearness  of  the 
personal,  that  we  should  believe  that  we  can 
see,  what  earlier  chapters  have  pointed  out, 
that,  in  the  main,  the  development  of  the 
race  has  been  steadily  toward  a  deeper  sense 
of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the  person; 
that  every  step  in  moral  advance  has  meant 
a  deepening  of  this  sense;  and  that  the  high- 
est test  of  a  civilization  or  of  a  man  is  to  be 
found  in  this  same  sense  of  the  value  and 
the  sacredness  of  the  person.  This  sensi- 
tiveness as  to  the  personal,  in  spite  of  some 
annoying  counter-currents,  seems,  beyond 
doubt,  stronger  in  our  age  than  ever  be- 
fore. And  we  have  already  seen  that  all  the 
distinctly  moral  and  spiritual  influences  of 
our  day  on  theology  may  be  grouped  under 
the  two  heads  of  this  deepening  sense  of  the 
value  and  sacredness  of  the  person,  and  the 
growing  recognition  of  Christ  as  the  supreme 
person  of  history.  Certain  it  is,  that  what 
have  been  indicated  as  the  modern  emphases 
in  theology — Christian,  biblical,  historical, 
practical,  ethical,  social — all  expressly  call  for 


236  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

a  deepening  of  the  conception  of  the  per- 
sonal. Now,  let  one  take  in,  even  superfi- 
cially, the  significance  of  these  statements, 
here  only  epitomized  from  our  previous  dis- 
cussion, and  he  must  feel  that  no  theology 
can  meet  the  needs  of  our  time,  or  the  de- 
mands of  truth,  which  does  not  insist  on 
bringing  every  problem  up  to  its  ultimate 
solution  in  personal  terms. 

5.  We  are  brought  to  the  same  inference 
when  we  recall  one  of  the  great  contentions 
of  modern  psychology — its  insistence  on  the 
unity  of  man,  already  emphasized.  The  whole 
man,  it  maintains,  acts  in  all.  Again  and 
again  in  the  history  of  man  has  it  been  neces- 
sary to  renew  this  protest  in  the  interests  of 
the  whole  man,  against  the  abstractions  and 
one-sidedness  of  a  "false  psychologism."  The 
warning  is  needed  in  theology.  Even  thought, 
emotion,  and  will  cannot  be  adequately  treated 
in  abstraction  from  each  other.  I  quite  agree 
with  Mellone,  that  it  should  be  a  fundamen- 
tal contention  in  philosophy  that  "no  one  of 
these  three  can  be  opposed  to  the  others ;  hu- 
man existence  or  experiences  cannot  be  inter- 
preted in  terms  of  one  of  these  unless  the 
others  are  made  of  equal  importance  with 
that  one.  We  do  not  correct  (intel- 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  237 

lectualism'  by  opposing  emotion  and  will  to 
thought — assuming  that  reality  is  found  in 
them  more  than  in  thought,  and  that  we  are 
before  all  things  active  and  feeling  beings ; 
nor  by  regarding  our  nature  as  a  mere  com- 
bination of  the  three,  as  a  rope  may  be  of 
three  strands;  but  by  regarding  even  our 
deepest  knowledge  of  these  three  (in  their 
distinction  and  relation)  as  itself  only  sym- 
bolic and  partially  true ;  so  that  the  three 
functions  become  three  inseparable  and  equally 
complete  symbols  of  what  man  verily  is."1 
And  if  we  take  real  account  thus  of  the  entire 
man  we  get  a  double,  not  a  single,  test  of 
truth  —  logical  consistency,  and  worth.  Real- 
ity must  meet  the  test  of  the  whole  man.  The 
point  now  to  be  noted  is,  that  this  psychologi- 
cal and  philosophical  insistence  upon  the  en- 
tire personality  leads  us  directly  to  our  main 
thesis  in  theology.  "The  whole  man,  in  the 
entirety  of  his  being,"  it  has  been  profoundly 
said,  "is  the  organ  of  the  spiritual;"2  and 
the  whole  man,  the  entire  personality,  comes 
out,  as  nowhere  else,  in  personal  relations. 

6.  But,  to  come  still  more  closely  to  our 
question,  let  us  note  that  the  whole  problem 

1  Philosophical  Criticism  and  Construction,  pp.  x,  xii. 
*  Newman  Smyth,  The  Religious  Feeling,  p.  142. 


238  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

of  life,  of  morals  and  of  religion  is  ultimately 
for  us  all  a  problem  of  the  fulfilment  of  per- 
sonal relations,  human  and  divine.  It  is  the 
problem  simply  of  bringing  the  child — man — 
to  a  genuine  sharing  of  the  life  of  the  Father, 
to  the  choice  of  a  character  and  joy  like  the 
Father's;  that  is,  finally,  the  problem  of  learn- 
ing to  live  the  life  of  love,  as  complete  and 
all-inclusive.  This  means  that  the  problem  of 
character  is  necessarily  social.  It  cannot  be 
individualistic  merely,  even  if  it  would.  We 
cannot  learn  to  love  in  a  vacuum.  The  per- 
fection of  individual  character  is  love.  And 
love  necessarily  involves  others.  We  learn  to 
love  by  loving.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is 
within,  indeed  —  the  reign  of  God,  who  is 
love,  in  the  individual  heart.  But  this  reign 
of  love  in  the  individual  is  manifestly  impossi- 
ble without  recognition  everywhere  of  rela- 
tions to  others.  Love  is  the  giving  of  self,  in 
personal  relations.  The  Kingdom  of  God, 
therefore,  is,  necessarily,  social — not  personal 
and  social,  but  social  because  personal.  A 
so-called  "social  theology,"  then,  has  simply 
adequately  to  conceive  its  problems  in  strictly 
personal  terms.  We  are  not  likely,  even  in 
this  generation,  to  over-emphasize  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  proposition:  "We  are  members 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  239 

one  of  another."  But  we  ought  to  see  that 
that  is  not  something  added  to  the  personal, 
but  rather  absolutely  necessary  to  any  possi- 
ble conception  of  the  personal  and  of  per- 
sonal relations.  To  deny  that  proposition  is 
to  make  impossible  any  moral  world  at  all. 
The  social  emphasis  of  our  generation,  there- 
fore, does  not  lead  to  some  quite  new  kind  of 
theology,  any  more  than  its  evolutionary  em- 
phasis; it  only  leads  to  a  more  perfect  con- 
ception of  the  personal. 

7.  And  finally,  this  insistence  upon  personal 
terms  in  theology  seems  to  the  writer  to  be 
only  a  return  to  the  great  dominant  New  Tes- 
tament conception.  It  is  amazing  that  we 
have  been  able  so  long  to  believe  that  the 
forensic  in  any  form  is  predominant  in  the 
New  Testament  writers.  Many  analogies  of 
all  sorts  are  used — the  forensic  among  others 
— to  bring  home  the  meaning  of  Christ's  life 
and  death.  But  I  believe  that,  even  among 
illustrations,  it  can  be  shown  that  the  legal 
does  not  lead.  Certainly,  it  ought  to  give  us 
cause  for  serious  thought,  that  Christ  himself 
nowhere  uses  even  a  forensic  analogy  as  to 
the  results  of  his  death ;  and  positively,  on 
the  other  hand,  does  make  everything  depend 
on  personal  relation  to  himself.  While  in  the 


24O  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

case  of  Paul,  if  due  weight  is  given  even  to 
his  single  phrase,  "in  Christ,"  it  must  be 
granted  that  the  personal  relation  is  clearly 
the  dominant  conception  in  his  thinking,  in 
spite  of  his  rabbinical  training.  The  great 
trouble  is,  that  we  have  made  far  more  of  a 
few  selected  scattered  illustrations  of  Paul  in 
his  theoretical  reasoning,  than  we  have  of  his 
multitudinous  statements  of  personal  relations 
in  his  account  of  Christian  experience.  But 
no  attempt  can  be  made  here  to  enter  upon 
the  treatment  of  this  phase  of  the  subject. 

It  may  well  be  added  that,  in  our  discus- 
sion of  the  critical  study  of  Scripture,  we 
found  ourselves  everywhere  driven  to  essen- 
tially personal  conceptions  of  God's  relations 
to  men,  in  order  to  keep  the  revelation  moral 
and  spiritual  at  all. 

I  hold,  then,  that  an  adequate  Christian 
theology  must  be  stated  in  personal  terms, 
because  the  very  word  "Christian"  implies  it; 
because  of  the  growing  recognition  among 
theologians  of  this  point  of  view;  because 
religion  is  itself  personal  relation  to  God ;  be- 
cause the  philosophic  trend  is  distinctly  per- 
sonal ;  because  the  moral  and  spiritual  char- 
acteristics of  our  time  show  that  the  personal 
has  a  new  clearness  for  us  and  far  greater 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  241 

recognition;  because  of  the  psychological 
emphasis  on  the  entire  man ;  because  the 
whole  problem  of  life  is  ultimately  the  prob- 
lem of  the  fulfilment  of  personal  relations ; 
and  because  this  personal  conception  lies 
closest  to  Christ's  own  thought  and  to  the 
directest  reflections  of  it  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Let  us  not  shrink  back  from  a  thor- 
oughgoing attempt  to  state  our  entire  the- 
ology in  strict  terms  of  personal  relation. 

II.  THE  PRINCIPLE  APPLIED  TO  THE  CONCEPTION 
OF  CHRIST 

As  it  is  distinctly  held  by  the  writer  that 
the  attempt  to  state  theology  in  personal 
terms  is  not  a  wholly  new  one,  but  rather  that 
the  great  need  is  that  the  attempt  be  made 
more  conscious,  more  thorough,  and  more 
consistent,  it  is  the  more  possible,  in  con- 
cluding our  discussion,  to  illustrate,  with  rea- 
sonable brevity,  the  partial  application  of  the 
principle  to  a  single  doctrine — the  doctrine  of 
Christ,  though  other  applications  are  not  less 
important. 

As  Christians,  we  start  with  Christ,  our 
supreme  datum.  He  is  our  supreme  datum 
because  he  is  the  supreme  fact  of  history, 


242  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

and  he  is  the  supreme  fact  of  history  because 
he  is  the  supreme  person  of  history.  There 
can  be  no  adequate  philosophy  that  leaves 
out  the  greatest  fact.  So  doing,  we  have 
thrown  away  the  key  at  the  start. 

Christ,  however,  according  to  his  own  con- 
ception, it  is  worth  saying,  is  primarily  a  reve- 
lation of  a  person  —  not  of  truth.  He  is,  he 
believed,  God's  own  supreme  self-revelation. 
And  his  great  value  for  us,  as  that  of  all  reve- 
lation, is  found,  not  in  the  fact  that  he  brings 
us  more  truths,  but  that  he  puts  us  into  per- 
sonal touch  with  God  himself.  In  the  very 
meaning  of  his  being  he  is  a  revealer  of  a 
person. 

But  only  a  person  can  fully  reveal  a  person. 
If  God's  personality  is  granted  to  be  real,  and 
yet  in  any  sense  transcendent,  any  adequate 
revelation  of  God  must  be  through  a  person. 
Moreover,  the  revelation  that,  above  all  else, 
we  need  of  God  is  the  revelation  of  his  char- 
acter, and  character  cannot  be  merely  told;  it 
must  be  shown,  and  it  can  be  shown  in  reality 
only  in  the  moral  activities  of  a  person.  And 
this  revelation  of  God's  character,  too,  must 
be  in  a  sphere  we  can  wholly  understand  and 
judge,  and  therefore  human  in  human  rela- 
tions—  a  human  person.  That  is,  Christ  must 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  243 

be  human  that  he  may  be  divine.  He  must 
really  show  in  his  own  life  the  ideal  personal 
relation  to  God  and  to  men,  in  order  really  to 
reveal  God  in  his  character  of  love.  God 
must  therefore  manifest  himself  as  man,  in  a 
person  whose  character  we  can  transfer,  fea- 
ture by  feature,  to  God  without  any  sense  of 
defect. 

Or,  to  look  at  the  matter  from  another 
point  of  view,  the  only  redemptive  force  we 
know  comes  through  trust  in  a  person.  The 
revelation  of  God,  therefore,  if  it  is  to  be 
redemptive,  must  be  through  a  person,  and 
through  a  person  who  can  call  out  absolute 
trust.  We  know  but  one  person  in  history 
who  can  call  out  that  trust.  We  shall  make 
no  mistake  in  saying,  he  is  the  supreme  self- 
revelation  of  God. 

But  to  see  that  Christ  is  in  his  very  being 
a  personal  revelation  of  God,  is  to  put  our 
whole  thought  of  his  significance  and  unique- 
ness in  a  somewhat  different  light. 

It  is  noteworthy  that  those  considerations 
which  weigh  most  with  us  to-day,  in  the  state- 
ment of  his  uniqueness,  are  all  in  the  realm 
of  the  personal  rather  than  the  metaphysical. 
They  do  not,  of  course,  exclude  metaphysical 
questions,  properly  conceived;  but  they  are 


244  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

not  primarily  metaphysical  at  all.  That  is, 
when  we  try  to  face  directly  the  questions : 
Who  is  Jesus  Christ?  what  does  he  mean? 
how  does  he  reveal  God  ?  we  find  ourselves 
instinctively  led  to  a  series  of  propositions,  as 
a  basis  of  our  belief  in  his  real  divinity,  all  of 
which  concern  his  character  and  personal  rela- 
tions. For  myself,  at  least,  the  propositions 
which  best  set  forth  the  absolute  uniqueness 
of  Jesus  Christ  are  such  as  these : 

1.  He  is  the  greatest  in  the  greatest  sphere 
— that  of   the   moral   and   spiritual,   speaking 
with   an   authority  here  which  no  other  can 
pretend  to  approach;    "transcendent   among 
founders   of   religion,"  as   Fairbairn    puts   it, 
"and  to  be  transcendent  here  is  to  be  trans- 
cendent everywhere."1 

2.  He    is    alone    the    Sinless    One ;    alone 
among  the  righteous,  in  Bushnell's  phrasing, 
of  "impenitent  piety."2 

3.  More  than  this,  with  the  highest  moral 
ideal    conceivable    by    men,    he    consciously 
rises  always   to   his   own   ideal,    and,   in    the 
words  of    Herrmann,   "compels  us   to   admit 
that  he  does  rise  to  it."3 

lOp.  «'/.,  p.  378. 

'The  Character  of  Jesust  P-  17  &• 

8  Op.  cit.,  p.  73- 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  245 

4.  Still  further,  Jesus  has  such  a  character 
that  we  can  transfer  it  directly  to  God,  and 
ask,  and  need  to  ask,  nothing  further.     Fair- 
bairn's   language   seems    literally  true:    "He 
was  the  first  being  who  had  realized  for  man 
the  idea  of  the  Divine."1     He  who  had  seen 
him  had  seen  the   Father. 

5.  Nor  is  this  all.    Jesus  has  also  conscious 
ability  to  redeem  all  other  men.     As  another 
puts   it:   "Jesus  knows  no  more  sacred  task 
than  to  point  men  to  his  own  person."      He 
is  himself  the  one  great  Redeemer. 

6.  This    simply  implies,    as    Denison    has 
pointed  out,2  such  a  God-consciousness   and 
such   sense   of    mission  as   would    make   any 
other  brain  the  world  has   ever  seen   topple 
into  insanity,  but  only  keeps  him  sweet,  nor- 
mal, rational,  living  the  most  wholesome   of 
all  human  lives. 

7.  In  consequence  of  all  this,  he  is  in  fact 
the   only  person   in   the  history   of   the    race 
who  can  call  out  absolute  trust,  and  in  whom 
God  certainly  finds  us. 

8.  He   is,  thus,  for  us  the  Ideal  realized, 
from  whom  we  would  take  nothing  away,  to 
whom  we  can  conceive  nothing  to  be  added. 

1  op.  «/.,  P.  7. 

1  The  New  World,  September,  1898,  p.  554. 


246  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

Now  it  is  upon  such  a  series  of  propositions 
that  I  base  my  confession  of  the  divinity  of 
Jesus  Christ;  or  rather,  it  is  in  such  proposi- 
tions that  I  do  confess  his  divinity.  But  such 
statements  obviously  cannot  be  received  in  the 
abstract,  upon  mere  authority,  or  as  result  of 
mere  will.  They  are  not  philosophical  propo- 
sitions. They  must  be  the  outcome  of  a  man's 
own  personal  experience  of  Jesus  Christ.  The 
only  valuable  confession  of  the  divinity  of 
Christ  must  follow  his  own  work  upon  us,  not 
precede  it  as  a  condition.  In  this  respect, 
then,  I  am  in  thorough  agreement  with  Herr- 
mann, and  should  expect  every  candid  Chris- 
tian to  be,  when  he  says :  "This  thought,  that, 
when  the  historical  Christ  takes  such  hold  of 
us,  we  have  to  do  with  God  himself  —  this 
thought  is  certainly  the  most  important  ele- 
ment in  the  confession  of  the  Deity  of  Christ 
for  any  one  whom  he  has  redeemed."1  An 
adequate  confession  of  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
that  is,  must  emphasize  the  fact  of  his  personal 
revelation  of  God,  for  the  greatest  denial  of 
his  divinity  must  certainly  be,  not  inability  to 
receive  certain  metaphysical  statements  about 
his  essence  or  substance,  however  time-hon- 
ored these  statements,  but  the  fact  that  a  man 

1Op.  cit.,  p.  112. 


THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL    TERMS  247 

does  not  find  God  in  Christ;  that  without 
sense  of  contradiction  he  can  leave  Christ 
outside  in  his  highest  religious  experiences 
of  communion  with  God ;  that  he  cannot 
think  of  Christ  as  an  eternally  satisfying  reve- 
lation of  God.  Contrast  with  such  a  denial 
the  robust  confession  of  Christ's  divinity,  im- 
plied in  the  words  of  Dr.  Behrends,  which  I 
suspect  many  a  theologian  who  would  criti- 
cise Dr.  Behrends'  conception  of  Christ  as 
quite  heretical  could  not  make:  "The  vision 
of  his  face  is  the  only  vision  I  ever  expect 
to  have  of  God,  as  Philip  saw  in  him  the 
Father." 

Let  us  candidly  ask  ourselves  whether  we 
have  not  really  been  laying  the  emphasis  on 
quite  the  wrong  point,  in  our  painful  endeav- 
ors to  decide  whether  another  man  admitted 
the  divinity  of  Christ.  Is  there  no  better  test 
of  a  man's  belief  in  the  Deity  of  Christ,  than 
whether  he  can  see  his  way  clear  to  the  meta- 
physical proposition  that  Christ  is  of  one 
essence  with  the  Father?  Can  that  be  the 
best  test,  and  Christianity  be  the  religion  it 
is  ?  Let  us  disabuse  our  minds  for  a  moment 
of  the  thought  that  Herrmann  is  a  Ritschlian 
heretic,  and  ask  if  he  is  not  strictly  correct, 
at  least,  in  this  statement:  "The  question 


248  RECONSTRUCTION    IN    THEOLOGY 

whether  we  are  right  in  speaking  of  the  Deity 
of  Christ,  when  we  have  found  God  turning 
toward  us  in  the  disclosure  of  Jesus'  personal 
life,  must  be  decided  according  as  we  con- 
ceive God  to  be  in  his  nature  a  substance  on 
the  one  hand,  or  on  the  other  a  Personal 
Spirit  who  asserts  his  nature  by  the  energy  of 
a  will  directing  itself  toward  certain  ends  and 
preserving  in  itself  a  certain  disposition.  If 
we  choose  the  former  conception  of  God, 
then,  certainly,  the  proposition  that  there  is 
divine  substance  in  Christ  will  be  chosen  as 
the  proper  expression  of  belief  in  his  Deity; 
but  if,  on  the  contrary,  the  latter  conception 
be  followed,  which  is  clearly  the  only  one 
represented  in  the  sacred  Scriptures,  and  the 
only  one  permissible  in  the  Christian  com- 
munity, then  it  is  self-evident  that  the  Deity 
of  Christ  can  only  be  expressed  by  saying 
that  the  mind  and  will  of  the  everlasting  God 
stand  before  us  in  the  historically  active  will 
of  this  man."1  In  all  fairness,  let  us  ask,  Is 
this  last  an  inadequate  confession  of  the  di- 
vinity of  Christ? 

I  should  myself,  indeed,  add  to  Herrmann's 
statement  the  consideration  that,  with  the 
ideological  view  of  essence  or  substance 

lOp.  at.,  p.  137. 


THEOLOGY    IN     PERSONAL    TERMS  249 

which  we  have  found  philosophy  asserting,  a 
true  metaphysical  view  of  the  being  of  Christ 
could  be  stated  only  in  terms  of  the  personal 
purpose  of  God  concerning  him ;  and,  since 
we  find  the  very  meaning  of  the  life  of  Christ 
in  the  fact  that  God  is  making  his  supreme 
self-revelation  through  him,  God's  purpose 
concerning  Christ  was  absolutely  unique,  and 
we  can  say,  in  strict  metaphysical  terms,  that 
Christ  is  of  one  essence  with  the  Father. 
Christ  is,  thus,  not  only  morally  and  spiritually 
at  one  with  God,  and  so  absolutely  unique  in 
his  perfect  response  to  the  will  of  God,  but 
also  may  be  said  to  be  metaphysically  at  one 
with  God,  when  essence  is  interpreted  teleo- 
logically.  The  newer  and  the  older,  the  per- 
sonal and  the  metaphysical,  forms  of  statement 
would  thus  fall  together ;  but  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  the  personal  and  practical  form  of 
the  confession  of  Christ's  divinity  is,  for  the 
vast  majority  of  men,  much  the  more  rational 
and  surer  test. 

When  we  turn  for  a  moment  from  the  per- 
son of  Christ  to  the  work  of  Christ,  we  find 
the  same  emphasis  upon  the  personal  needed. 
His  main  work  in  his  earthly  life  was  wrought 
through  personal  association  with  a  few  men. 
The  Kingdom  of  God,  which  he  came  to 


25O  RECONSTRUCTION     IN     THEOLOGY 

found,  was  a  kingdom  of  persons;  and  it  be- 
gan in  reality  when  a  single  man,  through 
personal  association  with  him,  had  come, 
dimly  at  least,  to  feel  what  his  personality 
meant  and  to  choose  with  him.  And  eter- 
nally Christ's  work  is,  through  his  own  per- 
sonal life,  to  bring  men  into  complete  per- 
sonal communion  with  the  personal  God. 
An  ever-deepening  and  ever  more  significant 
friendship  with  God  in  Christ — this  is  eternal 
life.  And  the  understanding  of  that  life  is 
the  chief  business  of  theology. 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Dr.  Lyman,  on  Christ  and  miracles, 

67. 

Action,  central  importance  of,  44. 
Age,  our,  not  an  anti-religious  age,  24;  has 
less  of  natural  and  more  of  Christian 
religion,  25;  demands  reality,  26;  char- 
acterized, 31  ff ;  as  revolutionary,  31  ft; 
in  religion,  32;  in  the  state,  33;  in  the 
intellectual  sphere,  34  ff;  in  philosophy, 
34;  in  natural  science,  36;  in  historical 
criticism,  38;  its  moral  and  spiritual  con- 
victions, 42  ff: 

value  and  sacredness  of  person,  42, 169; 
freedom  of  conscience  and  freedom  of 
investigation,  43;  recognition  of  law, 
conditions,  and  time,  43;  the  mechani- 
cal is  means  only,  43;  the  unity  of  the 
ethical  life  in  love,  43,  169;  denial  of 
the  separation  of  the  sacred  and  secular, 
44;  the  social  conscience,  44;  central 
importance  of  action,  44;  the  practical 
Lordship  of  Christ,  45. 

American  Journal  of  fheoloff,  T"he,  refer- 
ence to,  203. 

Analogy,  trying  to  master  in  theology,  n; 
of  organism  insufficient  in  theology,  92, 
179,  234°,  influence  in  history  of  thought, 
92;  from  human  institutions  insufficient 
in  theology,  234. 

Archxology  and  higher  criticism,  122. 
Athanasius,  on  God  in  Christ,  194. 
Atonement,   the,   dissatisfaction  with    the- 
ories of,  174;  bearing  of  the  blood  cove- 
nant on,  174;   Isaiah  $3,  as  illustrating, 
175;  as  ethical  throughout,  182;  as  pro- 
foundly personal,  174,  229. 

"  Back  to  Christ,"  meaning  of,  188. 
Baur's,  C.  F.,  Pastoral  Epistlet,  38. 
Behrends,  Dr.,  on  the  Divinity  of  Christ, 

247- 
Beyschlag,   on   need   of   reconstruction    in 

theology,  17;  in  criticism  of  theology,  21. 


Bible,  historical  and  literary  criticism  of, 
log  ff;  restatement  of  doctrine  of  in- 
spiration of,  155  ft.  See  inspiration.  Old 
Testament,  and  New  Testament. 

Biblical  interpretation,  39,  147. 

Biblical  theology,  39. 

Blood  covenant,  174. 

Briggs,  on  authorship  of  Old  Testament 
books,  127;  on  criticism,  as  helping 
historic  credibility,  143. 

Briggs'  fhe  Higher  Critititm  of  the 
Hexateuch,  reference  to,  40;  The  Study 
of  Holy  Scripture,  reference  to,  112. 

Burton,  Professor  E.  D.,  in  criticism  of 
theology,  20. 

Bushnell,  Horace,  on  the  uniqueness  of 
Christ,  244. 

Cary,  Dr.  G.  L.,  on  miracles,  64. 

Causal   connection,   as  strictly  conceived, 

54,  84,   102. 

Causal  explanation  and  ideal  interpretation, 
48,  Si,  $3,  S7;  must  be  finally  brought 
together,  48,  60.  61,  74  ff;  76,  89,  100. 
Christ,  the  modern  recovery  of  the  his- 
torical, 40;  the  practical  Lordship  of,  in 
our  own  age,  4$,  194;  in  evolution,  95, 
186;  the  supreme  person  of  history,  18; 
ft;  influence  on  theology,  241;  all  the 
valuable  lives  of  since  183$,  186;  the 
supreme  revelation  of  God,  187;  the  em- 
phasis on  his  humanity,  190;  conception 
of,  in  personal  terms,  241  ft: 

a  revelation  of  a  person,  242;  must  be 
a  person  to  reveal  a  person,  242; 
human,  in  order  to  be  divine,  190,  194, 
242;  redemption  only  through  trust  in 
a  person,  243;  Christ's  uniqueness  as 
personally  and  ethically  conceived,  243 
ff;  Fairbairn  on,  244, 245;  Bushnell  on, 
244;  Herrmann  on,  244,  24$;  Denison 
on,  245;  the  Divinity  of  Christ,  243  ff; 
246  ff,  247;  Behrends  on,  247, 


252 


INDEX 


Christian  Life,  the,  its  laws  those  of  a 
deepening  friendship,  210  S,  211.  See 
Religion,  and  Personal  Relations. 

Church,  Dean,  17. 

Clarke,  Professor  W.  N.,  on  religion  and 
theology,  227;  on  personal  conception  of 
the  atonement,  229. 

Courtney,  on  evolution,  87. 

Creeds,  the  value  of  the  great,  5. 

Dale,  Dr.  R.  W.,  on  need  of  reconstruction 
in  theology,  17. 

Darwin's  Origin  of  Species,  35. 

Denison,  Dr.  J.  H.,  on  miracles  as  not  an 
isolated  wonder,  68;  on  the  larger  domi- 
nant spiritual  order,  78;  on  the  unique- 
ness of  Christ,  24;. 

Denney,  Studies  in  Theology,  Horton  on,  21. 

Descartes'  "methodical  doubt,"  34. 

Design  argument,  strengthened  by  evolu- 
tion, 90. 

Differences  in  temperament,  as  affecting 
theological  statement,  9. 

Difficulties,  the  theologian  must  frankly 
recognize,  7. 

Driver,  on  higher  criticism  and  archaeol- 
ogy, 123;  on  the  bearing  of  higher  criti- 
cism on  the  inspiration  and  authority  of 
Scripture,  128. 

Drummond,  Henry,  on  law  in  the  spiritual 
world,  ;y;  on  evolution  and  involution, 
83;  analogy  of  organic  evolution  breaks 
down  in  his  hands,  92;  quoted,  121. 

Du  Bois-Reymond,  on  scientific  material- 
ism, 36. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  on  love,  170. 

Emerson,  on  need  of  honest  testimony,  27. 

Erdmann,  on  the  revolution  in  religion  in 
Protestantism,  32. 

Ethical,  increasing  emphasis  on,  in  the- 
ology, 169,  180  ff,  208. 

Evolution,  its  present  influence,  3$;  bear- 
ing of,  on  theology,  Si  S ;  definition,  81 ; 
LeConte  on,  81,82,  86;  need  of  precision 
in  our  thought  of,  81  S;  does  not  stop 
with  animal  series,  82;  the  nei-j  in,  83  ff, 
84,  87;  Drummond  on,  83,92;  of  the 
race  parallel  with  that  of  the  individual, 


86;  Rudolf  Schmid  on,  86;  Courtney  on, 
87 ;  general  gains  from,  in  theology,  88  S ; 
emphasizes  immanence  of  God,  81,  85, 
86,  88, 89,  91 ;  God  needed  at  every  stage, 
88,  89;  gives  larger  view  of  plan  of  God, 
90;  strengthens  the  design  argument,  90; 
John  Fiske  on,  90;  shows  harmony  in 
methods  of  God,  91 ;  its  detailed  applica- 
tion to  theology,  91  ff ;  only  limited  ap- 
plication possible,  92  ff,  94;  entire  evolu- 
tion series  must  be  taken  into  account, 
92;  purely  animal  evolution,  not  an  ade- 
quate analogy  in  theology,  92;  the  stage 
of  personal  relations  in,  94  ff;  Christ  in 
evolution,  95;  miracles  and,  96  ff,  77; 
Pfleiderer  on,  in  relation  to  theology, 
96  ff;  criticism  of  Pfleiderer's  argument, 
99  ff. 
Expotitory  Times,  The,  on  miracles,  64. 

Fairbairn,  on  systematic  theology,  i;  oil 
need  of  reconstruction  in  theology,  18; 
on  the  return  to  the  historical  Christ,  40; 
on  the  practical  Lordship  of  Christ,  4;; 
on  inspiration  and  revelation,  161;  on  the 
church,  177;  on  the  uniqueness  of  Christ, 
244,  24$  ;  his  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Mod- 
ern Theology,  epoch-making,  40. 

Fairchild,  James  H.,  on  personal  conception 
of  theology,  228. 

Fichte,  35;  on  rinding  truth,  12. 

Fisher,  Professor  George  P.,  on  recognition 
of  need  of  reconstruction  in  theology,  16; 
on  "reduction  of  area  of  Calvinism," 
170. 

Fiske,  John,  on  the  intellectual  changes 
since  1830,  40;  his  The  "Destiny  of  Man, 
90. 

Frank,  17}. 

Freedom  of  conscience,  32,  43. 

Freedom  of  investigation,  32,  43 ;  influence 
on  theology,  48  ff;  theology  must  admit 
unqualifiedly,  49;  no  occasion  for  anx- 
iety, 49;  investigators  should  be  compe- 
tent, 50;  theology  interpretative,  51. 

Gardner,  on  evolution  in  history,  102. 
Garvie's   The   "Ritschlian    Theology,   refer- 
ence to,  3,  20. 


INDEX 


253 


Giddings'  article  on  Modern  Sociology,  ref- 
erence to,  36. 

God,  his  relation  to  persons,  71,  106,  164, 
iggff;  his  relation  to  nature,  72;  universe 
absolutely  dependent  upon,  54,  8$,  89, 
101 ;  emphasized  in  evolution,  44;  imma- 
nence of,  81,  8$,  86,  88,  89, 91 ;  difference 
between  immanence  in  nature  and  in 
man,  loo.  104;  immanence  must  have 
element  of  transcendence  in  it,  108;  pro- 
gressive self-revelation  of,  13$  <*.  '48> 
151,  162;  God  as  Father,  the  ruling  con- 
ception in  theology,  188;  hi*  supreme 
revelation  in  Christ,  187,  241  ff;  the 
question  of  "social  Trinity"  of,  191; 
the  biblical  Trinity,  193;  need  of  unity  of 
God,  193;  religion  a  personal  relation  to, 
'99  8',  personality  of,  209;  as  "supra- 
personal,"  209.  See  Religion. 

Gordon's  The  Chriit  of  To-Da),  reference 
to,  23. 

Harnack,  in  criticism  of  theology,  22;  on 
the  practical  Lordship  of  Christ,  19$. 

Hatch,  Edwin,  38. 

Hegel,  35. 

Herrmann,  173;  on  need  of  reconstruction 
in  theology,  19;  in  criticism  of  theology, 
20;  on  ethical  in  religion,  181 ;  on  practi- 
cal Lordship  of  Christ,  19;;  on  personal 
conception  of  theology,  230;  on  unique- 
ness of  Christ,  244,  24$;  on  the  divinity 
of  Christ,  246,  247. 

Hexateuch,  Oxford,  125;  Briggs' book  on, 
40. 

Higher  criticism,  39;  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, 109;  definition  of,  HI;  inevitable- 
ness  of,  114  ff;  George  Adam  Smith  on, 
116,  119,  13$;  Fairbairn  on,  116  ff; 
dangers  in  the  transition  to  critical  views, 
118  ff;  general  results  of,  122  ff,  124; 
results  as  to  authorship,  127,  128  ff;  and 
archaeology,  122;  Driver  on,  123,  128; 
reasons  for  confidence  in  the  final  out- 
come, 126;  gains  from,  141  ff;  chiefly 
intellectual  gains,  142;  gains  from  fact 
that  Christianity  is  biblical,  144;  gains 
from  the  fact  that  Christianity  is  histori- 
cal, 145;  results  of,  for  theology,  149  ff: 


purpose    of    Bible,  150;    progress   in 
revelation,  135  ff,  148,  151;  individual 
reflections  of  common  religious  experi- 
ence, 155;  different  use  of  Bible,  154; 
restatement  of  doctrine  of  inspiration, 
15$  ff.    See  Inspiration. 
Historical  criticism,  characterized,  38. 
Historical  and  literary  criticism  of  the  Old 
Testament,  HI  ff.    See  Higher  Criticism. 
Horton,  Dr.  R.  F.,  criticism  of  theology,  21. 
Honesty,  in  testimony  needed,  27;  especially 
in  theology,  27,  47;  in  growing  apprecia- 
tion of  values,  214;  in  friendship,  226. 
Humanity  of  Christ,  emphasis  on,  190. 
Hyde's  Outlines  of  Sodal   Theology,  refer- 
ence to,  23. 

Ideal   interpretation   and    causal  explana- 
tion, 48,    51,   53,   57;   must    be    finally 
brought  together,  48,  60,  61,  74  ff,  76,  89, 
100. 
Ideal   and    mechanical   views.     See  topic 

preceding. 

Immanence  of  God.    See  God. 
Incarnation  and  sacramentalism,  177. 
Individualism   and   the   social   conscience, 

r?9,  i 80. 

Inspiration  of  the  Bible,  and  higher  criti- 
cism, 128,  143,  146;  restatement  of  doc- 
trine of,  155  ff: 

not  an  a  priori  theory,  155;  Bible  a 
record  of  revelation,  156;  no  suppres- 
sion of  the  human,  157;  corresponds 
with  New  Testament  doctrine  of  the 
Spirit,  158;  always  both  human  and 
divine  elements,  159;  revelation  grow- 
ing as  man  grows,  159;  Fairbairn  on, 
161 ;  gain  of  the  view,  162  ff. 
Difference  from  post-biblical  inspiration, 
163  ff: 

must  judge  by  the  facts,  164  ;  Bible, 
the  record  of  the  pre-eminent  meetings 
of  God  with  men,  165;  difference  be- 
tween New  Testament  and  Christian 
literature  of  the  second  century,  166; 
God's  self-revelation  culminated  in 
Christ,  166. 

Isaiah,  chapter  53,  as  illustrating  a  spirit- 
ual view  of  the  atonement,  175. 


254 


INDEX 


Jackson's  James  Martineau,  referred  to,  105. 
James,  Professor  William,  on  "old  fogyism," 

10;  on  religious  life,  z$;   on  overestima- 

tion  of  the  scientific,  53. 
Justification    by   faith,  ethical   element  in, 


Kaftan,  on  relation  to  God,  203. 

Kant,  93;    his  critical  philosophy,  34;   on 

the  needed  obscurity  of  spiritual   truth, 

205. 
Kulpe's   Outlinet  of  Psychology,   reference 

to,  35. 

Language,  limitations  of,  as  affecting  theo- 
logical statements,  10. 

Law,  modern  recognition  of,  43 ;  univer- 
sality of,  to  be  recognized  in  theology, 
56  ff,  57. 

Laws,  not  self-existing,  or  pre-existing, 
57- 

Le  Conte,  on  evolution,  81,  82,  86. 

Liebnitz,  on  man  as  key  to  universe,  232. 

Lotze,  in  criticism  of  theology,  21 ;  in  defi- 
nition of  the  modern  age,  31;  on  revolu- 
tion in  the  State,  33;  on  causal  connec- 
tion, 54,  85,  104;  on  mechanism,  61;  on 
God's  relation  to  persons,  72,  164;  on  de- 
pendence of  universe  on  God,  8g;  cf.  54, 
85,  103;  on  relation  of  Good  and  Nature, 
105;  on  Judaism  and  Christianity,  131; 
on  recognition  of  whole  man,  171;  on 
personality  of  God,  209. 

Luther,  on  God  in  Christ,  194. 

Materialism,  present  collapse  of,  36,  232. 

Mechanical  means  only,  43,  cf.  61,  74. 

Mechanical  and  ideal  viewi.  See  Ideal  in- 
terpretation. 

Mellone,  on  equal  essentialness  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  will,  236. 

Miracles,  in  light  of  modern  science,  61  ff; 
a  question  of  fact,  6i  ff ;  Expository  Times, 
on,  64;  Dr.  G.  L.  Gary,  on,  64;  Sanday, 
on,  66;  Abbott,  on,  67;  Bruce,  on,  68; 
Huxley,  on,  68;  not  "isolated  wonders," 
68;  Dr.  J.  H.  Denison,  on,  68;  in  relation 
to  persons,  71;  in  relation  to  nature,  72; 
evidence  of  larger  dominant  spiritual  or- 


der, 77;  Pfleiderer's  discussion  of,  as  re- 
lated  to  evolution,  96    ff;     criticism  of 
Pfleiderer's  view,  99  ff  : 
must  meet  the  facts,  101  ;   we  cannot 
discern  strict  causal  connections,  103; 
difference  between  immanence  in  man 
and  that  in  nature,  104;   God  a  part  of 
our  personal  environment,  106;   would 
leave  no  religion  but  Positivism,  107. 
Missionary  theology,  183. 
Modesty,  in  growing  appreciation  of  val- 

ues, 214. 

Moulton's  Modern  Reader'  t  "Bible,  122. 
Muller,  Julius,  on   wounds  of   knowledge, 


Neo-Hegelian  restatements  of  Christianity, 

12. 

New  Testament,  historical  and  literary  crit- 
icism of,  109;  as  giving  individual  re- 
flection of  Christ,  153,  188;  personal  con- 
ception of  religion  in,  239. 

Obscurity  in  spiritual  truth  needed,  204. 
Oehler's    Theology  of  the   Old    Testament, 

reference  to,  39. 
"Old  fogyism,"  10. 

Old  Testament,  historical  and  literary  criti- 
cism of,  no  ff;  abiding  significance  of, 
130  ff: 

the  great  moral  book  of  antiquity,  130; 
the  great  religious  book  of  antiquity, 
131;  the  record  of  the  progressive 
seeking  of  men  after  God,  134;  the 
record  of  God's  progressive  self-revela- 
tion to  men,  13$,  148;  Christianity'! 
need  of  the  O.  T.  revelation,  138;  our 
own  life  writ  large,  139;  the  biological 
point  of  view,  139. 

authorship  of  its   books,  127,  129;    Orr, 
on,  133  ;  George  Adam  Smith,  on   revela- 
tion  in,  135  ff  ;  reveals  a  real   God,  149. 
See  Higher  criticism,  and  Inspiration. 
Organism,    analogy  of,  imperfect   both   in 
sociology  and  theology,  92  ff,  179;  influ- 
ence of,  in  history  of  thought,  44,  92. 
Orr,  on  theism,  72;  on  uniqueness  of  O.  T. 
view,  133;    his   The  Christian   View  of 
God  and  the  World,  reference  to,  71. 


INDEX 


255 


Over-sophistication,  12. 
Oxford  Hexattuch,  note  on,  iz;. 

Paradoxes  in  the  creeds,  8. 

Paul's  view  of  Christian  life  as  a  personal 
relation,  240. 

Paulsen,  on  the  " voluntaristic  trend"  in 
psychology,  182;  on  the  "thing-in-itself," 
2]2 ;  his  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  refer- 
ence to,  36,  103. 

Person,  sense  of  value  and  sacredness  of, 
42;  influence  of,  on  theology,  169  ff.  See 
Theology. 

Personal  relations,  best  known,  179,  235 ; 
can't  be  stated  in  terms  of  organism,  92 
ft,  179;  in  evolution,  94  ff,  212;  theology 
in  terms  of,  175,  227  ff;  the  theologian's 
greatest  study,  231,  234;  religion  as  a 
personal  relation,  199  ff.  See  Religion, 
and  Theology. 

Pfleiderer,  173;  on  the  year  1835,  38;  on 
fellowship  with  God,  71 ;  on  evolution 
and  theology,  96  ff;  his  view  criticized, 
99  ff.  See  Miracles;  his  The  "Develop- 
ment of  Theology,  reference  to,  40;  Phi- 
losophy and  "Development  of  Religion,  64. 

Philosophy,  recent  changes  in,  34  ff ;  recent 
emphasis  on  history  of,  3;;  predominance 
of  idealistic  views  in,  43,232;  teleologi- 
cal  view  of  essence,  232;  Mellone,  236. 

Positivism  results,  if  all  transcendence 
denied,  loo,  108. 

Practical  test  of  doctrine,  182  ff. 

Progress  in  revelation,  135  ff,  148,  151,  162. 

Psychology,  modern  advance  in, 35;  Wundt's 
work  in,  35  ;  its  voluntaristic  trend,  44, 
182  ;  its  testimony  to  Christ,  186  ;  its  em- 
phasis on  the  whole  man,  4$,  171  ff,  236. 

Question  of  a  "social  Trinity,"  191  ff. 

Rashdall,  on  need  of  reconstruction  in 
theology,  20. 

Rationalism,  not  the  reason  for  the  demand 
for  reconstruction  in  theology,  23 ;  of 
eighteenth  century,  not  possible  now,  26. 

Reconstruction  in  theology,  its  meaning, 
v,  vii,  15  ;  evidence  of  feeling  of  need  of, 
id  ff;  Fisher  on,  16;  Dale  on,  17; 


Beyschlag  on,  17;   Simon  on,   18;  Fair- 
bairn  on,  18  ;  Herrmann  on,  19;   Rash- 
dall on,  20;  Reasons  for,  23  ff: 
not  rationalism,  23  ff ;  not  the  reaction 
of  an  anti-religious  age,  24  ff ;  but  the 
influence    of    new    world,    28;    illus- 
trated, 199  ff. 
Reformation,  as  revolution  in  religion,  32  I 

its  view  of  justification,  32,  181. 
Religion,  revolution  in,  32 ;  as  a  personal 
relation,  174,  1998,  200,  no;  guarding 
the  conception,  201  ff: 
God   in  Christ,  201  ;   not  a  sensuous 
relation,  201  ;  not  anticipation  of  rela- 
tion of  future  life,  202  ;  not  a  familiar 
equality  with  God,  203  ;  like  relation 
to    moral   demands,  203  I    the   needed 
obscurity  of  spiritual  truth,   204  ;  the 
relation  to  God  has  a  universality  all 
its  own,  206  ff,  207,  208. 
Laws  of  the   Christian   life,  those  of  a 
deepening  friendship,  210  ff;    the  analo- 
gous laws  of  growing  appreciation  of  any 
value,   213   ff;    the   basis  of  the  divine 
friendship,  216  ff: 

mutual   self-revelation   and   answering 
trust,  2I7>  mutual  self-surrender,  218; 
some  deep  community  of  interests,  221. 
the  conditions  for  deepening  the  friend- 
ship, 222  ff: 

not  continuous  emotion,  222;  associa- 
tion, 223  ;  time,  223  ;  expression,  224; 
sacred  respect  for  person,  225  ;  honesty, 
226. 

and    theology,    199,    227 ;    involves    the 
ethical,  180  ff,  208. 

Revelation,    See  God,  Higher  criticism.  In- 
spiration, and  Progress  in  revelation. 
Revolutionary  spirit  of  the  age,  31  ff: 
in  religion,  32  ;  in  the  State,  33  ;  in  the 
intellectual  sphere,  34  ff. 
Right,  absolute  natural,  and  historic  legiti- 
mate, 33. 

RitschI,  on  self-giving,  219, 
Ritschlians,  10,  19,  173,  247. 

Sabatier,  on  the  task  of  theology,  3. 
Sacramentalism,    rejection   of,    44,   176  ff; 
and  the  incarnation,  177, 


256 


INDEX 


Sanday,  on  O.  T.  ttndy,  140. 

Schclling,  35. 

Schleiermacher,  35. 

Schmid's  Theories  of  Darwin,  reference  to, 

87. 

Science,  modern,  characterization  of,  36  ff : 
may  be  overestimated,  $3;  influence  of, 
on  theology,  48  ff;  see  Freedom  of  inves- 
tigation: relation  to  theology,  52  ff; 
threefold  restriction  of  itself,  to  experi- 
ence, 54,  102,  to  causal  connections,  55, 
to  phenomena,  $5 ;  universality  of  taw  in, 
j6ff;  see  Law,  and  Theology;  bearing 
on  miracles,  61  8;  the  special  bearing  of 
evolution,  8l  ff.  See  Evolution,  and 
Miracles. 

Seth,  Andrew,  on  recognition  of  the  whole 
man,  172. 

Shaftesbury,  93. 

Shaler's  The  Individual,  reference  to,  103. 

Simon,  Dr.  D.  W.,  on  need  of  reconstruc- 
tion in  theology,  18. 

Smith,  George  Adam,  on  higher  criticism. 
116, 119;  on  revelation  in  the  O.  T.,  135  ff. 

Smyth,  J.  P.,  on  change  in  view  of  Bible, 
izi ;  note  on  his  How  God  Inspired  the 
"Bible,  121. 

Smyth,  Newman,  on  the  whole  man,  as  or- 
gan of  the  spiritual,  237. 

Social  conscience  of  our  time,  44;  quicken- 
ing of,  178  ff;  its  light  on  theology,  178; 
and  individualism,  180. 

"Social  theology,"  238. 

Sociology,  its  recent  rise,  36. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  beginning  sociology,  36; 
his  "Unknowable,"  54. 

Spirit,  the,  needed  in  theology,  I  ff. 

Spiritual  order,  evidence  of  larger  domi- 
nant, 77  ff. 

Spiritual  truth,  needs  constant  reinterpreta- 
tion,  2;  obscurity  in,  204. 

State,  the  revolution  in,  33. 

Staying  in  the  presence  of  the  best,  in  ap- 
preciation of  values,  2ij. 

Teleological  view  of  essence,  132;  a*  ap- 
plied to  the  conception  of  Christ,  248. 

Temperament,  as  affecting  theological  state- 
ment, 9. 


Theologian,  the,  must  know  his  age,  4; 
must  frankly  recognize  difficulties,  7;  hie 
task  temporary,  I ;  the  helps  to  mutual 
understanding  with  others,  9. 
Theology,  spirit  needed  in,  I  ff;  reconstruc- 
tion in,  see  Reconstruction;  criticized, 
20  ff;  by  Burton,  20;  by  Herrmann,  20; 
by  Beyschlag,  21 ;  by  Horton,  21;  by 
Lotze,  21 ;  by  Harnack,  22;  need  of 
honest  testimony  in,  27,  47;  demand 
of  the  new  intellectual  world  on,  28  ff; 
inevitably  influenced  by  convictions  of 
our  time,  46;  the  influence  of  the  new 
world  on,  48  ff :  scientific  influences  on, 
48  ff;  relation  to  freedom  of  investiga- 
tion, 48  ff,  see  Freedom  of  investigation; 
interpretative,  51;  relation  to  natural 
science,  $2  S,  see  Science;  influence  of 
higher  criticism  on,  109  ff;  influence  of 
sense  of  value  and  sacredness  of  person, 
on, 169  ff: 

unity  of  ethical  life  in  love.  169  ff ;  rec- 
ognition of  the  whole  man,  171  ff ;  the 
exclusion  of  the  mechanical,  173  ;  the 
rejection  of  sacramentalism,  176;  the 
quickening  of  the  social  conscience,  1 78 
ff ;  the  increasing  emphasis  on  the  ethi- 
cal, 180  ff;  practical  test  of  doctrine, 
182  ff. 

Influence  of  recognition  of  Christ  as  the 
supreme  person  of  history,  on,  185  ff : 
Christ  as  the  supreme  revelation  of 
God,  187  ff,  201 ;  God  as  Father,  the 
ruling  conception  in  theology,  188;  em- 
phasis on  the  humanity  of  Christ,  190; 
the  question  of  a  "social  Trinity,"  191 ; 
the  practical  Lordship  of  Christ,  194. 
Modern  emphases  in,  196 ;  in  terms  of 
personal  relation,  17$,  227  ff: 
must  be  stated  in  personal  terms,  228  ff ; 
very  name,  Christian,  228 ;  growing 
recognition  of,  228  ;  since  religion  a 
personal  relation,  231 ;  because  of  phil- 
osophical trend,  231  ;  new  sense  of 
personal,  233,  235  ;  psychology's  em- 
phasis on  entire  man,  236  ;  whole  prob- 
lem of  life,  237  !  N.  T.  conception,  239'. 
the  principle  applied  to  the  conception 
of  Christ,  241  ff.  See  Christ. 


INDEX 


257 


Transcendence,  some  element  of,  must   be 

in  immanence  of  God,  108.     See  God. 
Transitional    stages    in    theology   difficult, 

230. 

Trinity,  question  of  a  social,  191  tf  ;  bibli- 
cal Trinity,  193. 

Trumbull,  H.  C.,  The  Blood  Covenant  and 
The  Threshold  Covenant,  174. 

Truth,  how  it  comes  to  be,  12  ;  double  test 
of.  237. 

lyndall's  address  on  Scientift  Materialism, 
36. 

"Uniformity  of  law,"  expression  criticized, 
56. 

Uniqueness  of  Christ,  stated  in  personal 
and  ethical  terms,  243  ft.  See  Christ. 

Unique  universality  of  God's  personal  rela- 
tions, 206  ff. 

Unitarian  view,  not  involved  in  emphasis 


on    the   humanity    of    Christ,    190,    194, 

cf.  23;  had  a  real  historical  justification, 

194. 

Unity  of  God,  religious  need  of,  193. 
Unity  of  the  world,  present  increased  sense 

of,  37. 
Universality  of  law,  its  meaning,  56,  $7  ; 

accepted  and  affirmed  in  theology,  $7  ff. 

Value,  growing  appreciation  of  any  sphere 
of,  213  ff;  introduced  through  others, 
213  ;  honesty,  214;  modesty,  214  ;  staying 
in  the  presence  of  the  best,  215. 

Whole  man,  the,  psychology's  emphasis  on, 
4$,  171,  236;  theology's  recognition  of, 
171  ff,  236 ;  Lotze  on,  171  ;  Seth  on,  172  ; 
the  organ  of  the  spiritual,  Smyth,  237. 

World,  the  new.     See  Age. 

Wundt's  work  in  psychology,  35. 


Jesus  Christ 
and  the  Social  Question 


An  Examination  of  the  Teaching 
of  Jesus  in  its  Relation  to  Some 
Problems  of  Modern  Social  Life 


By  FRANCIS  GREENWOOD  PEABODY 

Pluramer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals,  Harvard  University 
12MO,  CLOTH.     PRICE,  $1.50 

"The  author  is  professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, and  his  book  is  a  critical  examination  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
in  its  relation  to  some  of  the  problems  of  modern  social  life.  Professor 
Peabody  discusses  the  various  phases  of  Christian  socialism  in  this 
country  and  in  Europe." — The  Baltimore  Sun. 

"It  is  vital,  searching,  comprehensive.  The  Christian  reader 
ivill  find  it  an  illumination;  the  non-Christian  a  revelation." — THE 
EPWORTH  HERALD. 

w  Discussing  in  'Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question'  the  compre- 
hensiveness of  the  Master's  teaching,  Francis  Greenwood  Peabody, 
Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Harvard  University,  says 
that  'each  new  age  or  movement  or  personal  desire  seems  to  itself  to 
receive  with  a  peculiar  fullness  its  special  teaching.  The  unexhausted 
gospel  of  Jesus  touches  each  new  problem  and  new  need  with  its  illu- 
minating power.'"— The  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 

"A  thoughtful  and  reflective  examination  of  the  teachings  of  Jesus 
in  relation  to  some  of  the  problems  of  modern  social  life." — THE 
LOUISVILLE  COURIER-JOURNAL. 

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The  Influence  of 
Christ  in  Modern  Life 

Being  a  Study  of  the  New  Problems 
of  the  Church  in  American  Society 

By  the   REV.  NEWELL  DWIGHT   HlLLIS 

Pastor  of  the  Plymouth  Church,  Brooklyn 
12MO,  CLOTH.    $1.50 

FROM   THE  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE: 

By  way  of  preeminence  this  era  now  closing  has  been  an  era  of 
criticism  and  destruction.  Nothing  has  escaped  the  crucible.  Scholars 
have  carried  the  method  of  the  laboratory  into  the  library,  the  gallery, 
the  legislative  hall,  and  even  into  the  temples  of  religion.  Old  poems, 
old  histories,  old  science,  old  creeds,  have  been  pulled  to  pieces,  and 
studied  part  by  part.  With  some  the  analytic  spirit  has  become  a 
frenzy,  and  the  love  of  dissection  a  morbid  passion.  With  others 
analysis  has  represented  a  desire  to  know  the  exact  facts.  Now  that 
the  wave  of  criticism  has  passed  by,  changes  many  and  great  are 
found  to  have  taken  place.  \  Nothing  remains  as  it  was.  We  have  a 
new  chemistry,  a  new  pedagpgy,  a  new  psychology.  And  now  that 
the  intellect  has  completed  its  analytic  work,  our  generation  has  come 
to  realize  that  the  heart  with  its  hunger  is,  as  before,  unappeased. 
Religion  is  the  life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man.  The  creed  is  the  outer, 
verbal  photograph  of  that  inner,  vital  experience.  Man's  interest  in 
those  verbal  pictures  named  creeds,  unfortunately,  seems  waning,  while 
his  interest  in  religion  is  steadily  waxing.  As  Edmund  Burke  once 
said,  "Man  is  by  constitution  a  religious  animal." 

Now  that  the  destructive  era  has  closed,  from  the  view-point  of  the 
new  scholarship  many  are  beginning  to  feel  that  the  critical  epoch  was, 
after  all,  an  epoch  of  mediocrity  and  second  rate  intellect.  All  the 
great  eras  in  art  and  literature  have  been  creative  eras  rather  than  criti- 
cal. ...  In  his  preparatory  work  the  youth  enters  the  labora- 
tory to  study  the  human  body,  counting  its  bones  and  studying  the 
chemical  elements  of  nerves  and  muscles.  Later,  when  the  young 
Romeo  meets  Juliet,  he  is  lifted  into  a  new  realm  by  the  new  friend- 
ship, and  never  thinks  of  reducing  the  beautiful  girl  to  a  group  of  small 
jars  marked  "lime,"  "phosphate,"  and  "carbon."  And  there  are  the 
best  of  reasons  for  believing  that  in  religion  the  critical  epoch  has  gone 
and  the  creative  era  has  come. 

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